Debate: Do God's decrees violate Man's Free Will? with Matt Slick and Skylar Fiction

This is Apologetics Live with Matt Slick and Andrew

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It was a very enlightening discussion that they had, and we basically commented

on that.

So with that, the way we're going to do this tonight,

basically the debate that we're going to be having is a formal debate.

So with that said, it's not going to

be where they're just having a discussion.

The topic is, do God's decrees violate man's free

will?

And the way we're going to do this debate is, Skylar's going to start off with a 10 -minute opening, then Matt's a

10 -minute opening.

Skylar's going to do the first of 15 -minute rebuttals, then Matt.

Then we're going to have two cross -examinations.

That'll be 20 minutes each.

Each person will be given one minute to ask a question.

The other person will have two minutes to answer, and then a closing 10 minutes each of Skylar, then Matt.

So that is the format.

Before we get started, I'm going to first bring in both of the debaters here, and

I'll start with you, Matt, if you want to go and introduce yourself.

Actually, I should start with Skylar, since he's speaking first.

That is true.

So Skylar, go for it.

And anything that you want to do, I know you've got a YouTube channel, or anything that you want to promote or introduce yourself, go

for it.

Hey, everybody.

I'm Skylar Fiction.

I'm super excited to be here tonight.

I have a YouTube channel called The Skylar Fiction Show.

If you just type Skylar Fiction with an A -R, you will certainly find it out there.

I host discussions and debates with theists.

We do biblical commentary.

I've got a co -host named Dr. Josh Bowen who runs Digital Hammurabi.

He's a biblical scholar.

He co -hosts the show with me and is my partner in crime.

And, of course, all hail Raptor Jesus.

So thank you for being on here tonight.

I really appreciate the opportunity.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year to all my friends out there.

All right, Matt, you want to introduce yourself?

Yeah, I'm Matt Slick, the founder and director of CARM .org, Christian Apologetics Research Ministry.

I've been doing it for 24 years.

I'm a Christian apologist.

I do it full time.

And the website's had over 100 million visitors.

CARM .org, C -A -R -M dot O -R -G.

I've been doing radio five days a week, Monday through Friday, for 15 years

today.

Today's the 15 -year anniversary, and praise God for that.

So hopefully we'll have an interesting discussion tonight.

We'll see how it goes.

All right.

And so, folks, what's going to happen is when they get down to about a minute, you're going to see that clock pop in.

I probably won't leave it up the whole time.

But just so you guys know, that'll give you the idea.

So we don't have a buzzer or anything like that.

I think these guys both have been doing enough debates.

They'll stay to time.

So, Skyler, you're going to start.

You ready?

Oh, I'm ready to go when you are, yeah.

All right.

Let me get the clock going here.

All right.

All right.

I'm good to go.

All right.

Hold on one sec.

Don't worry, sir, please.

Why is the clock not starting?

Oh, it's the wrong clock.

That's why.

Hold on.

All right.

Go for it.

So let me say that I'm super excited to have this debate tonight because this is a topic that I've

talked with Calvinists quite a bit with on my channel.

Talked a little bit about it with Matt Slick in our last two debates.

That wasn't, of course, the specific topic we were discussing.

But it's been a struggle for me to get a Calvinist to actually articulate how

people have free will with the concept of like God's decree of will.

So one of the things I think what we could start with is.

And by the way, everything that I am going to go over and all the information that I'm going to give you definitions

wise all come from Karm .org.

These are all Matt Slick's definitions.

I didn't get them from anywhere else.

I didn't go to other Calvinists.

I literally took everything off of his website.

So all of my arguments will be focused around those particular definitions.

So let's talk a little bit about what about God's decrees.

Right.

And perhaps I'll just go right into quoting his website.

So the decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to where by he has foreordained whatever

will come to pass.

Now, what does it mean to foreordain something?

On Matt Slick's website, it says it is the same as predestination, which means that God ordains what will happen in

history and in salvation.

So I think it's it's very important to start there.

So keep in mind that anything that happens throughout history, I don't I'm getting a lot of feedback.

I don't know if maybe some could mute their mic, but there's a lot I keep hearing feedback from somebody on there.

But anyways, it doesn't matter.

The thing is, is there is anything that's ever happened throughout history is preordained by God.

Don't no matter how awful, how good the fact that I'm having this conversation right now, preordained by God.

And just once again, what is preordained to be preordained by definition?

This is the same as predestination, which means that God ordains whatever will happen in history or salvation.

Now, last conversation I had with Matt, I gave some very explicit questions to Matt.

I said, hey, you know, when children are molested.

Is that ordained by God or if God decrees a child could be molested, let me say it like that.

Will it happen?

And he said, yes.

But this isn't the only thing.

It's any type of terrible, awful thing that's ever going to happen.

9 -11, you name it, you could fill in the blank with whatever, whatever awful thing you can think

about within human existence.

That's all preordained by God because of his wills.

Now, how is it if God, it's easy to think about it.

Let's use an analogy, either God like a architect or a computer programmer.

All right.

God writes out the blueprint or programs to code.

Now, people can't go against God's will because he's already

preordained it.

I mean, you could use particular scriptures like, and he quotes these on his website.

So let's do like Ephesians 1 -11.

All things are done according to God's plan and decision.

And God chose to use it to be, sorry, God chose us to be his own people in

union with Christ before, because of his own purpose, based on what he has decided from the very beginning.

So all the things that I had mentioned, 9 -11, you know, child molestation, this is all

because this is what God wanted.

Everything's exactly what God wanted.

In fact, let's look at a couple other definitions here.

What do I want to get into?

Oh, here, let's do the decreed of will of God.

The decreed of will of God is that which God's sovereign will that we may or may

not know, depending on whether or not God reveals it to us.

The decreed of will is God's direct will.

He causes something to be.

So God causes these things to be.

Not only does he cause it, he actually plans it.

So, I mean, well, that makes sense.

If you were to plan out all of human existence, if you were to actually plan

out all of human existence, obviously, and people can't go against his will, it's going to

happen exactly the way that God's planned.

Because, you know, God is sovereign.

And what does it mean for God to be sovereign?

According to Matt Slick, sovereignty is the right of God to do as he wishes.

This implies that there are no external influences upon him and that

also he has the ability to exercise power and control according to his will.

So everything is according to his will.

Now, think about it this way.

If God wrote the blueprint and everything's going to go along his blueprint, how

could it be possible that people could have free will?

Free will, defined by Matt Slick on his website, is the freedom of self -determination.

Well, people don't have self -determination under Calvinism.

It's already predetermined, under predestination.

It's the ability to make choices.

A choice is free if it is consistent with a person's desires and nature.

Free will, actually, let's leave it right there.

So how can someone freely choose to do something if God has already preordained it?

He wrote the blueprint.

Now, what you'll oftentimes hear from Calvinists is this idea that somehow

people freely choose to sin.

Now, this is the aspect that I've never actually been able to hear Calvinists articulate.

And this is what I'm going to be looking for in this debate.

And I hope that I've proven wrong.

I've talked to a lot of them.

I had to look at Calvinists last week.

And no one can seem to say how God can preplan something with his decreed of will.

And he's got a couple different wills.

But how God can preordain everything and at the same time someone can freely choose to do something.

At best, what you're going to have is some kind of, like, illusion of free will, where the people

involved think they are actually committing free choices.

Especially, once again, because people cannot go against the will of God.

But if God decrees something, it will happen.

Just like the example that I gave and the question I asked Matt in our last debate.

If God decrees a child is going to be molested, it is going to get molested.

Now, Calvinists will oftentimes, like, argue there's, like, indirect decrees and direct decrees, right?

But the slight difference is basically with an indirect decree.

Instead of just making man X do something, which I don't know how you would argue that you're not

making X do something.

Basically, an indirect decree would just set up the pieces so something would happen.

So how am I going to say this?

So that's going to be, I think, the challenge for Matt Slick during this debate.

How is he going to articulate freedom away from

a blueprint or a computer program?

A computer program can't rewrite the program.

A blueprint can't rewrite itself.

Make sure I got everything covered before we keep going here.

Decrees of God, sovereignty, decree of will.

Oh, yeah, let me do this here, too.

This is a really good part.

So this is a part where we kind of go, this is from an article from CARM or maybe it was a document.

I don't know exactly.

It talks about predestination and election, right?

So what is election?

Election is the sovereign act of God where he chooses people or individuals to carry out his purpose in the

world.

God's election is not based on the quality, any quality in the individual or groups of people, nor is it based on

any foreseen ability in them.

It's not about what they're going to do in the future.

It's just who he chooses, our group of people, nor is it based on any foreseen ability in

them.

God is the one who elects people out of his sovereign will, whatever he wants, for his good pleasure.

That's basically what sovereign means, as I read earlier.

He is the one who chooses the people.

People do not elect themselves.

Okay.

So right there, actually, let me add this on.

This will really kind of nail it down here, and then I'll probably wrap it up.

I'll probably write about ten minutes.

Let me look at my time here.

Yeah, about a minute and a half.

So this is from that paper I was saying.

You must note that God's predestined people, as in Ephesians 1 .11, 1 .5, demonstrate that

this is, however, a controversy to the nature of predestination.

In the Reformed Calvinist camp, predestination includes individuals.

In other words, the Reformed doctrine of predestination is that God predestines whom he wants to be saved and that

without the predestination, none would be saved.

The non -Reformed camp states that God predestines people to salvation, but these people freely choose to

follow God on their own.

Now, what is it?

So the people who aren't Calvinist, non -Reformed positions say that they would freely choose to

follow God.

That sort of sounds like free will there, but that's not what Calvinists believe.

But these people freely choose God.

In other words, in the non -Reformed perspective, God is reacting to the will of the individuals.

This is do they, you know, are they going to accept God?

Are they the one who initiates the will?

That would be the choosing, the part where I talked about free will earlier.

God is reacting to the will of the individuals and the predestining them only because they chose God using their will.

Whereby contrast, the Reformed position states that people choose God only because he

predestines them first.

So certainly, in that sense, people don't have free will in the idea of

your election, not election, salvation.

So you don't get to freely be elected, you don't get to freely choose God.

God has to elect you.

Part of these wills, actually, part of these wills, funny enough, is that

he puts everything.

Your desire, what's going to happen, all these things are all built in.

It's all part of the blueprint, exactly what's happening now.

Thank you, I appreciate the opening statement.

Right on time too, good job.

All right, so I will bring Matt in.

All right.

I'm looking, hold on.

His window's open.

Where am I? Where is it? Where is it?

It's right over there to the left.

You can see that on the left, right?

It's on his left, right?

Hold on.

I don't see it.

I thought it was down to the bottom.

His window's open.

Hold on.

Skyler, to help me bust on Matt, like double teaming.

Oh, there it is, there it is.

Okay.

Okay, you ready?

Wow.

Yeah, I got three large monitors and a bunch of windows open.

I was taking notes.

All right.

All right, you can hear me okay?

All right.

Well, first of all, thanks, Skyler.

I appreciate you going to my website and using it as a resource.

That's good.

And I do appreciate that you're seeking to try and build a case.

I will still urge you, and I'll say this again, that you're welcome to sit with me sometimes, and I can explain

how these things work together better.

It could take more than just 10 minutes in a heated discussion.

But nevertheless, I'm just going to go through my notes from what you said.

How do people have free will along with God's decreed will?

Because God decrees that they have free will.

And that may sound like a verbal juxtaposition here, but no, it's what it is.

Free will.

You didn't define it.

Yes, you did.

You actually did.

You went to my site.

Free will is the freedom of self -determination.

So that's good.

That is what it is.

And in the Reformed camp, and I believe the biblical camp, we don't deny free will.

We don't say that people are forced to do anything by God.

We don't say that he puts their hand on a gun and pulls a trigger and says, See, this is what

you did, so therefore you're responsible for it.

And this is a common objection that Arminians make, and it's a common objection that atheists make.

Atheists and the Arminians frequently argue in the same kind of sense, because they're

man -centered, not God -centered.

Nevertheless, so you misapplied some stuff.

God's decretive will, where God causes things to be.

You misapplied the issue.

You quoted decretive will but misapplied it in the sense that you failed to understand

that there is also the decretive will, there's the permissive will.

God permits people to be able to do things against his, what we call the

prescriptive will.

God says don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, but he permits them to lie, cheat, and steal.

They have their freedom to be able to do this.

He's not forcing them to lie, to cheat, and to steal.

He does not want them to in the sense of his prescriptive will, but in another sense, it is within

his will to ordain their permission or give them that ability and freedom to be able

to lie, to cheat, and to steal.

This is within God's ordination and his, what we say, his decrees in

that sense to be able to provide the circumstances by which people are freely able

to rebel against God.

You may say, well, they're not free if it's decreed.

Nothing that you have said means that they cannot have freedom if God has decreed something to be.

If God has decreed a free will choice, it's still free by the very definition of it being decreed to be

free will.

For example, I can cause you to freely do something.

Now, if I can demonstrate that I can cause you to freely do something, and it's still free will, but yet

you've been caused to do it, your whole objection fails.

Let me give you an illustration of something.

Skyler, if I was sitting in a room with you, and we were discussing this, and you wear

a hat, and I wanted you to take your hat off, and I didn't tell you that I want you

to take your hat off, but that's what I want you to do.

I could do a number of things to get you to take your hat off, to cause you to take your hat off freely.

For example, I could say, what the heck is that on top of your hat?

I hope that thing's not going to sting you.

You could go grab that thing and look.

Now, here's an example.

If I were to say that, does it mean then that though I caused you by my action

to do something I wanted you to do, does it mean you did not have free will in the process?

Of course not.

You freely chose to do what you desired to do in light of the circumstance that

I brought into existence and said, this is what I want you to do.

I could do all kinds of things.

We'll just call that the take your hat off your head illustration.

But I could cause you to take your hat off of your head.

But the causing of it is not forcing you to, but it is causative.

In that, the actions that I put in place will bring you to your free will choice to be able

to do what I want you to do.

Your free will is not violated.

You have free will.

I have caused you to do what I want you to do.

So you see, it is certainly possible to have someone be caused to freely act.

Your criticism is that God, if he decrees somebody to do something, that it

means they're not free to do it.

Well, first of all, you have to understand there's what's called the direct and the indirect decrees of God.

The direct decrees of God are the direct causative decrees of God.

Let there be light, etc.

Where when God decrees and declares certain things to happen because that's what he decides and by his direct

action, that's what occurs.

He can have an indirect decree, for example, in the Garden of Adam and Eve, where he allows the

enemy, the serpent, to come in and deceive Eve.

And by that, Adam and Eve disobeyed him.

It was not God's prescriptive will that they disobey him and that he prescribes

them to obedience and moral fidelity to him.

But it was within his permissive will to allow them the freedom to be able to do that.

And they certainly freely chose to rebel.

Now you might come back and say, well, wait a minute.

God put all the pieces in place.

Yes, he did.

Undoubtedly.

He put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there.

He put the tree of life there.

He allowed the serpent to come in.

He allowed the discussion to occur.

Well, then God's responsible.

No, he's not responsible for the moral failure of Adam and Eve.

And the reason he's not responsible for the moral failure of Adam and Eve is because they freely chose to rebel.

God did not force them.

If God had done some chemical thing in their brain that forced them to be able to

say something and do something, then God would have been directly responsible for their rebellion.

But that's not the case.

What we do have there, as the scriptures itself teaches, that God arranged and

allowed the circumstances by which Adam and Eve freely chose to rebel against God.

By definition, it was free.

If you say again, just to reiterate, he put the pieces in there.

They had no choice.

Well, there's a sense in which they had a choice.

There's a sense in which they don't have a choice.

If God foreordains whatever shall come to pass, why is it that is foreordained?

Is it because he knows what they're going to freely choose?

Well, that's one position.

The Armenians tend to go with that, and I have problems with that.

That's another discussion.

I would say that whatever is potentially existing, God, out of an infinite number of potential possibilities,

brought into existence the actuality that he chose.

And that actuality includes the free will choices of those individuals.

So therefore, he knows exactly what those free will choices, and he caused so -and -so to

remove the hat by saying what's on top of your head.

Because that's what God chose to happen, and yet the freedom of the one who removes the hat is still

in place.

God can certainly do this in creation.

He is the sovereign king.

He is the one who can work all things after the counsel of his will, as Ephesians 111 says.

Now, you said the reformed doctrine of predestination, God predestines those whom he wants to be saved, and without this, none will be

saved.

That's correct.

Jesus says in John 6, 65, you cannot come to me unless it's been granted to you from the Father.

That's what Jesus says.

Now, if you don't like what Jesus says, you don't like that doctrine, well, then you can just take it up with Jesus.

But that's it.

It's not just simply a Calvinist teaching.

It's what the scriptures teach.

And that's why I hold to what we call Calvinism, because it agrees with the scriptures, and that's the only reason.

So people who are not Calvinists say that people can freely choose to follow God.

All right.

Well, that's rather a humanistic idea, in that they think that man is somehow free in

and of himself, in an independent fashion from God's sovereignty and control, in spite

of Ephesians 111, which says God works all things after the counsel of his will.

Even the free will choice that the Arminians like to argue on the same side as atheists about this

issue against the Calvinists and God's sovereignty.

They certainly can argue, but they have to argue against the scriptures and with the scriptures.

Now, if you want to have an Arminian discussion, as you brought up, we can discuss that, and I can discuss why their failure to

understand the biblical position is apparent.

And I would invite Arminians to come in and discuss this with me.

We can go through the scriptures.

But you don't affirm the scriptures, Skyler.

So I have to use logic and it's scripture as well.

So nevertheless, I don't know how much time I've got left, but I would say this, that I have

demonstrated logically, thank you a minute left, that God certainly can bring about whatever he

desires and still maintain the freedom and the free will of those individuals who are made

in his image, just as I can cause you to take off your hat in any

number of ways, Skyler, by saying there's a scorpion, a spider, a bug, or whatever it is on your hat and you take

your hat off.

And I can cause you to do that.

And yet your free will is not violated.

And God, who is a sovereign above all things, can certainly bring about circumstances

by which free will individuals will certainly do whatever God decides and

wants them to do.

And to call it a computer program is a misrepresentation of the issue.

To call it a blueprint is a misrepresentation of the issue.

God allows us our freedom, but he's above our freedom nonetheless.

And as Proverbs 121 says, God moves the heart of the king where he wishes it to go.

God is a sovereign.

This is consistent with Christian theology and the nature of God himself.

Amen.

All right.

That's time.

All right.

So bring Skyler in and we're going to have

15 minutes for rebuttal.

Let me just reset our clock here.

All right.

Are you ready?

Skyler, are you ready?

I don't know if you muted yourself.

Hold on.

Sorry about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I did.

Yep.

No, I'm good.

Yeah, I don't want you talking for 10 minutes and on your rebuttal, no one hears it.

No, no, that wouldn't be good.

All right.

You got the floor.

All right, my man.

All right.

So I guess now so far I haven't actually heard that mechanism yet to how

people have free will and God can preordain everything, right?

Just simply saying, let me see, God decrees they have free will doesn't mean anything

because it contradicts what's actually happening.

Let's once again look at what it means when God predestines things.

Predestination is the doctrine that God has foreordained all things which will come to pass.

Now what does it mean to foreordain is the same as predestination, which means that God has ordained what will happen

in history.

History, it's a key, and salvation.

He's written like the blueprint.

I don't know why he said it's not a good analogy, but it's exactly what it is.

You could say written a book, you could use a computer program, but everything is preordained by God.

Everything that has happened is exactly the way it is supposed to happen.

It's not a matter of like him allowing things to happen.

They're going to happen because he used his will to make it come, and

what he

decrees must happen.

People cannot go against his decrees.

As I said before, like in the last debate, when I asked Matt if God decrees is a child going to get

molested, that child is going to get molested.

It cannot go another way.

What I haven't heard at all during this is how besides just saying people,

God decrees they have free will, which it's meaningless because they don't have a way to go against it.

If you don't have a way to go against free will to make another choice, the only thing you have is the

illusion that you actually have a choice in this situation because once again, what is free will?

The freedom of self -determination.

You don't have self -determination.

Things are determined by God as I read earlier in

Ephesians 111 as he quoted, all

things are done according to God's plan and decision, and God chose us to be his own people in union with Christ

because of his own purposes based on what he has decided from the very beginning.

He's already decided all this.

Now if you're arguing that people can go against his will, you have an argument, but that's not what

you're saying.

You're saying the will has to be followed, and according to your website, that's exactly what you're saying.

So I'm having really difficulties trying to like, this is the same thing I run into all the time when I talk to Calvinists is

nobody seems to be able to articulate.

I will say that you've given a different answer, but I think it's less satisfactory than the answers that I get.

Most people with Calvinists will just point to Romans 9 and say, hey, who are you?

The clay to tell the potter basically what to do with it.

And once again, when we talk about free will, listen, yeah, of course I'm not Narminian, I don't believe in your religion, I'm a raptor bait,

all hail raptor Jesus.

But the thing is, I can still show what you're saying.

You're saying that the difference between Narminian and a Calvinist is

that people freely choose to accept Jesus, and that they on their own

volition can make that choice.

Under Calvinism, they can't make that choice.

The only way that they can come to God is if God offers that grace, and it isn't based on anything.

It's not based on you're going to act or anything that they've done.

It's just predetermined before they're even born.

Of course God knows what's going to happen in the future because he wrote out exactly what was going to happen in the future.

Let's talk about the hat thing.

If God preordains that my hat is going to come off my head, it's going to come off my head under your belief system.

It doesn't matter the methodology, how you choose to do it.

The point is he's the ultimate cause.

He's the one who caused it to come off my head.

And there's no way I could have kept it on there.

It doesn't matter if it's whether you're trying to take it off, you're lying to me and pretending there's a bug on top of it,

whatever you said there, which God wouldn't lie, of course.

But the point is that he preordains the hat will come off, and there's nothing I can do

to stop it.

Now I could have yelled at him, but I'm

looking for the mechanism here, and just telling me that somehow God decrees free will, but then free will is

not actually happening, it's confusing, and it's frankly I don't think a satisfactory answer

by any means.

So now you said something, and I'll be interested later on when we get to the back and forth about in one sense they have a

choice, and in one sense they don't.

So I'll be interested to see what the choice, in what sense they have a choice, and what's the sense they don't.

I'm going to imagine the sense they don't have is they can't go against the will of God.

What else do I got here?

Freely choose to do something.

Oh, I was going to hit on your permissive will.

Let's go and I have the, let me pull up, because that was something I did not have up for your.

The permissive will of God is that which God does not decree to occur, nor is it his

will since it is not in accordance with his law.

God's permissive will is his will to permit sin to occur.

Now this is once again a contradiction.

How are you going to say that God permits something to happen, but God plans it out?

Because as your website said, once again, he has planned out all of human history.

Everything that has ever happened is because this is exactly the way that God wanted it.

So how can one permit something to happen?

Well, I mean, I guess in the sense you could write out the plan, the blueprint or the computer program, whatever's

going on here.

He could write it out and then he could sit back and let his plan go through.

Like in that sense, he could permit it to happen.

But in the context and what we would use, like I permitted my child to play video games or I permitted,

I don't know, my dog to go outside.

We wouldn't use permit within that kind of context here.

So it doesn't really, saying that he permits something was permissive.

Well, I really, I actually think this is just a direct contradiction, frankly.

I mean, that's not the topic of the debate.

I'd love to debate that another time.

But it's frankly just it is a contradiction.

Let's go back.

Let me just make sure I haven't missed anything here.

I mean, one more second.

Let me just make sure I got everything that I want to see here.

For instance, if people could do otherwise, then God's plan would be contingent on mankind's decisions.

And mankind would have to get some kind of glory for God's plan in succeeding.

God would be depending on mankind.

So it's obviously not up to their decision.

This is God's plan here.

So the God's plan would be contingent.

If it was up to them, it would be contingent on them.

And obviously, under your theology, you guys don't believe that.

What else do I want to hit here?

And I'm just going to once again, I'm going to go over some of these terms once again, just so it's very clear for the audience.

What is the decree of will?

The decree of will of God is that which is God's sovereign will that we may or may not

know, depending on whether or not God reveals it to us.

God's decree of will is his direct will where he causes something to be.

He is causing everything to be.

He is the ultimate cause.

He is the one who planned it out.

Once again, what does it mean to be sovereign?

Sovereign is the right of God to do as he pleases.

That implies that there is no external influence.

Humans aren't influencing.

There are no external influences on him.

This is all part of God's plan.

The decrees of God are his eternal purpose.

Everything that is happening throughout history is his eternal purpose, according to his will,

whereby he foreordained whatever will come to pass.

Foreordained, which means that God ordains what will happen in history and in salvation.

Not just salvation, in history.

The Holocaust, 9 -11, whatever.

Think about whatever awful thing he planned it out for his glory.

And then he holds people responsible for the way they can't go

against.

So I would just say that these are some things we really need to think about.

And once again, what is free will?

Free will is the freedom of self -determination.

Human beings don't have self -determinations and actions independent of external causes.

Well, how are your actions independent of external causes if God's

decree was for you to do action X?

How could anything human beings do be independent of external causes

if from the very beginning God has planned out everything?

Now, the reason God knows what's going to happen is because he wrote the plan.

So I think that there are quite a bit of problems when we get into this idea of

free will and predestination, election, and

Calvinism.

I'll admit that I think, biblically, I think that it's more consistent to Calvinist theology than I think some Arminian

positions are.

But it's a whole separate topic, I guess.

What else do I want to go here?

Let's talk about what sin is.

Sin is that that is contrary to the law or will of God.

Okay, so if sin is that what is contrary to the will of God, how is God

causing, as we see with the Decree of Will, which says God caused, how is

it that God is able to cause people to sin?

Now, on Matt's website, to be fair, he says that he'll basically add within these contexts.

Well, it doesn't mean that he's causing the sin, but how could you say that he's not causing

people to sin when he predestined everything that was going to happen in history from the very beginning?

It's another contradiction.

So I think we could wrap it.

I'll concede the rest of my time.

I'll give you the last four minutes.

I think I've said everything I want to say.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

All right.

I'll bring Matt in.

All right.

Let me reset the clock here, Matt.

Okay.

You ready?

Yeah, I guess so.

Go ahead.

I could use some ice cream right now.

A little chocolate would be nice.

Oh, that's my time, isn't it?

I better get going.

So Skyler said that I have not revealed the mechanism of how people can have free will and God can ordain everything.

Well, actually, I did.

I gave you an illustration, the remove your hat illustration, that

I can directly cause you to freely do something.

I can predetermine that you will freely do something.

If you and I were to ever meet, you probably would make sure your hat was on real tight and you'd never remove it in my

presence.

Who knows?

But I could certainly cause you to do certain things.

I met for coffee.

Like I did to a friend of mine once.

I did this.

I had a bowl.

I said, what's with my ice cream?

He says, yeah, let's get some ice cream.

I go in the kitchen.

I get a plastic bowl.

I had vanilla ice cream.

And I put a white napkin in it.

And what I wanted to do was to cause him to react with a mild panic when I dumped

it on him.

And so I came out there.

And this is my desire for him.

And he's a good friend of mine.

And so what I did was right before I handed it to him, I tripped.

And this bowl of ice cream comes tumbling into his lap.

And he literally flinched backwards and tried to crawl backwards up in the seat.

And I'm laughing.

And he called me a couple of names and stuff like that.

We both laughed about it.

And we were done.

I directly caused him to do something I wanted him to do.

I didn't make him.

I didn't violate his free will.

He freely chose to do what he did.

Just as if I were to say, what's that on your hat?

That thing is really interesting on your hat.

You might very well just take a look at it.

Oh, that's a whatever.

It's not a problem.

It's a mechanism that God can certainly bring circumstances to bear by which people do those things which God

wants them to do freely.

Just as I can cause you to take your hat off in the circumstances.

There's your mechanism.

You say, no mechanism.

There it is.

And you didn't refute this by saying, yes, I can certainly bring circumstances

to bear to cause you to do certain things, but you're doing it freely.

You have not refuted that.

Anyway, so my notes, yes, everything that's supposed to happen will happen just as God decides will

happen.

Yes, that's true.

Just as God, as I said in the opening statement, can work circumstances by which a person can freely do what

God desires him to do.

Just like I illustrated with you.

I did.

Yes, if God desires a child get molested, it will occur.

But you see, the problem with that kind of a statement is what it is, is a half -truth kind

of statement that has these things attached to it.

You're not being very clear.

And so when we say that God decrees it, well, what do we mean?

That he directly causes it by what he wants?

I really want that child to be raped or molested.

No.

But in another sense, which you went in later, the indirect decree, which God says, I'm going to permit

to allow people their sin and rebellion to be atheists, to be agnostic, to be

Muslims, to be whatever.

In their rebellion, it gets a truth of what he has revealed.

And so it is his desire to do that.

And his decree is to desire to do that as well.

But he's not causing them to do it, nor does he cause people to be molested.

Now, yesterday I did a, no, two days ago I did a

Patreon video on the issue of suffering.

And I've been thinking about this.

Why does God allow so many Christians through the centuries to suffer unspeakable horrors?

Burned alive, skin ripped from their flesh, ripped and torn apart by animals, put out

on frozen lakes naked to freeze to death.

And they pray for deliverance and God decides not to.

Well, he decides not to, and I could give various reasons why that might be the case.

But it is the will of God that they suffer.

And why would it be the will of God that they suffer?

To glorify his name, to receive greater reward in heaven, to demonstrate the sacrificial nature of love,

to emulate the sacrificial nature of the sacrifice of Christ himself as he submitted humbly to others.

There could be a multitude of reasons by which God allows bad things to happen.

And by him allowing them doesn't mean that in his prescriptive will he desires

evil to occur, but in his permissive will he does.

And his permissive and his prescriptive will both work within the sovereign will of God, his

sovereign predestination and decree to allow these things to happen by the free will of these

people who choose to rebel and act in a manner contrary to what he has revealed

he wants for them morally.

And then you repeated that I did not present the mechanism.

Yes, I did.

And the force you to remove your hat analogy is that.

And you said that we don't have self -determination if God determines it.

Well, let me ask you, if I determine that you do something like remove your hat by

saying something and you remove the hat, does it mean that you did not determine it yourself?

Does it mean that if we just say determination is that thing which we want to occur?

If I want you to remove your hat and you freely do because I say something's on it or I pour something on it or

I do something, whatever, you know, a whole host of things that could cause you to freely do that.

I have determined that you do that.

I have in that loose sense of the word ordain that you do it.

Very loose sense.

I have free will chosen to have you do something by your free will to do what I want you to do.

You've not refuted that.

You have not refuted that ability and that reality and that illustration right there.

If you can refute that, then we can move on.

But if you can't refute it, then the mechanism which you are asking for has been laid out before you

in the sense of an illustration.

I have shown you that logic allows someone to cause another person to do something

freely without forcing them to do it.

But yet they're caused to do it.

I've demonstrated how that's the case.

You've not refuted it.

Nor have you given me, and I'd like to see if you could.

I don't believe you can do it right now, and I don't believe it's fair for me to ask you to do it right now.

Because I think these kinds of things I'm going to ask you about take a little bit of time to think about on your own.

But I could say to you, could you please give me premise one, premise two, or premise three with a conclusion

demonstrating the illogic of why decree does not work with our free will.

Now, I'm not asking you to do that right now.

I honestly don't believe that's a fair thing for me to do, because it takes time to work those things out.

But if you would be so kind as to do that, if you said, yeah, I'm going to try that, and I'll email it to you, okay.

And if you don't want to, that's okay as well.

But I think that what's necessary is that you present some logical problem.

Just saying it doesn't work doesn't mean it doesn't work.

But nothing in God's self -determination means that we cannot also be determined.

Nothing in God's self -determination doesn't mean that we can't also accomplish what we desire.

Just as I have shown you repeatedly with the force you to remove your hat analogy, let's call it now just the

hat illustration.

I've shown this to you, and you've not refuted it.

You just have continued to say it's not possible.

The reason we Calvinists believe that we

can freely choose God is because we believe that God first regenerates us.

See, a lot of our minions get this wrong, and this is just a theological point, is to say that

God changes us internally, makes us born again, and we freely choose him.

He can certainly, in this logic, bring anybody to freely choose and trust in him by

his regenerative, gracious work upon their souls.

As he causes us to be born again, 1 Peter 1 .3, we're born again not of our own will, John 1 .13.

And we are changed, 2 Corinthians 5 .17, made new creatures, et cetera.

I can go through the scriptures on this, but that's mainly for the Arminians if they want to discuss that with me.

But the idea here within the biblical perspective, and particularly the Calvinist one, is that regeneration precedes

faith.

The free will ability to choose God, which is enabled by God's freely acting

upon us, freely changing us, and then that change results in our free will ability to choose him.

Now, you may not understand that.

I don't mean that in a derogatory sense.

Please understand, I'm not saying you don't get that.

You're stupid.

I don't believe that.

But sometimes concepts just take a little bit to understand.

And I've had debates with people where I don't understand the concept they're getting at.

And I ask them to repeat it to me.

So I don't mean anything condescending to you whatsoever in that.

But if it is confusing, we can go over it again and again.

And so let's see.

I'll go through my notes.

In one sense, people have free will to do something.

In another sense, they don't.

It's kind of a thing.

That's not the exact wording I want to go with.

But I'll use it as a springboard.

One of the discussions I remember hearing or reading about was the man who nailed Christ's wrist to

the cross.

Did he have the free will to say no?

In one sense, yes.

In one sense, no.

But it has to be yes.

And the reason it has to be yes is because he was freely doing it.

But yet God ordained that he do it.

Well, God certainly ordained all the circumstances by which he would freely act.

And that's the thing you've got to understand.

That God can certainly ordain the circumstances knowing all outcomes and possible

outcomes of any individual.

I'm not going to go Molinistic here.

But he can certainly do that and bring about whatever he desires.

And he can certainly bring people into a place of having a free will desire and action based on

something he knows about them.

It's certainly possible.

I'm not saying all these things are how things are doing.

I don't want Molinists to get in here and use this because that's another discussion from their time.

I have reasons against Molinism.

But for now, I'm going to use this illustration here.

God can certainly bring certain things about.

You know, I don't like clowns, for example.

I do not like clowns.

They scare me.

I don't know why.

I think I got an idea why.

So my friends know this.

And if they were to bring a clown into my house, I'm going to react negatively.

And they would get a big joke out of it.

I'm out the back door.

I don't like them.

They're freaky.

I don't watch clown movies.

I don't watch clown horror, this and that.

It's just the way I am.

Now God knows that.

Can he cause me to walk left instead of right by bringing a clown down the street?

Yes.

Does it mean that I have not acted freely?

Of course I have acted freely.

Could God have ordained that clown to be where he is at that certain place and time?

Of course.

Or a picture of a clown to move?

Yeah.

There's a thousand ways which God can bring me to walk left rather than right.

Maybe he can bring some Mormon missionaries to my left.

And I'm going to go that way because I'm going to go talk to them.

You see, there's lots of ways.

If he were to bring Mormon missionaries by on a couple of bikes, he knows I'm going to go talk to them because that's the way I'm put together.

Yeah, I'm not scared of clowns.

That's right, Frank.

And so, you know, he knows I'm going to do that.

He can certainly ordain my turning left, my turning right, my saying yes, my

saying no.

And a countless number of ways of bringing circumstances to bear in which I will

freely act according to his ultimate desire.

You've not refuted that.

And that certainly is a mechanism by which God can do that.

So you've not demonstrated logically that God's decrees means we're not free within those

decrees.

You've just simply stated it.

You've implied that we're not free because he decrees.

I'm showing you how you can decree and we can be free.

You've not shown your case.

How much time do we have left?

Just incidentally.

I don't know how much time.

Two minutes.

Oh, OK.

And so let's see.

Looking through some of my notes.

OK, you may not like the idea of the.

Yes.

How could any human being do?

He says, how could anything human beings do be independent of external causes if from the very beginning God planned

out everything?

That was an interesting statement.

And I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, Skyler, in that I don't believe you worded it properly.

You know, when we're talking, we don't often don't say things perfectly.

But that statement doesn't make any sense because we never we as Christians do not say that human

beings can act independently of external causes.

Because all things that we choose are dependent some way to some effect on the external cause.

For one thing, God brought us into existence.

We're not eternally independent of him.

So there are eternal external causes.

But the very nature of God's decrees is redeeming us, is creating us, et cetera.

It's a poor choice of words, but I'm not going to harp on you on that.

I think you could do it better.

As I said, you know, we often will say things.

I'm going to rephrase that.

That's OK.

And oh, and by the way, to predestine everything doesn't mean he directly causes everything.

To predestine people to do something bad doesn't mean he's causing them to do something bad.

This is something you have to understand.

And you have you made the mistake of thinking that predestination means, in every case, direct

causation.

And no, it doesn't.

And I can give you verses that show the revelation of God where people are predestined by God, yet they're responsible.

Acts 4 .27, respectively, with Acts 2 .23.

I guess my time's up.

There you go.

Oh, got a minute.

I'm good.

That's all right.

OK.

All right.

We'll reset the clock to 20 minutes for

the rebuttal section.

And just give me one second to get the clock set.

All right.

So I'm going to put myself out.

I'll come in when it gets close to the 20 minutes.

Skyler, you have 20 minutes.

Again, you will get one minute to ask a question.

Matt gets two minutes to answer.

If you feel Matt does not answer, just let me know.

We stop the clock and we give you a chance to re -ask the question.

All right?

So your time starts now.

You're muted.

I'll reset the clock.

All right.

Sorry about that.

I keep muting.

I don't want to make any noise when Matt's talking.

No, you don't have to worry about that because I just put you in the timeout.

Oh, OK.

Perfect.

You called the timeout.

Yeah, I did.

That's true.

All right.

I'll reset the clock.

Go.

Awesome.

Thank you.

OK.

Is there anything decreed by God that won't happen?

No.

OK.

Does God, as in predestination, it's actually, I'm sorry,

foreordained, it says, is the same as predestination, which means that God ordains what will happen in history and in salvation.

Is everything that has happened throughout all of human history

preordained by God?

Yes.

OK.

Can anybody go against God's will?

Which kind of will?

Any will.

Oh, I'm supposed to.

Yeah, you can.

That's what asks you questions.

OK.

I can't answer the question properly unless you define your terms more precisely.

Any will.

Can people go against any will of God's?

Can they go against his prescriptive will?

Yes.

Any will.

Any will.

That was my question.

Can they go against any will?

Yes.

OK.

Which will can they go against?

The prescriptive will of God.

Was the prescriptive will is the sin, if I recall.

So, can you explain how can, oh, actually, let me ask you this question.

Is human desire decreed by God?

So, what I desire is that part of the predestination.

What is already preordained.

So, the desire to sin is preordained by God.

In the broad sense of God allowing both the direct and the indirect causation of those things,

yes.

OK.

So, God, we've already said God already plans out everything throughout history.

Everything is exactly the way it's supposed to happen according to his will.

Your desire to do something, like I'm desiring to hold my phone right now.

That desire to hold my phone is because of God's will, correct?

In the broad sense, yes.

You're being too broad, but OK.

Can I, is there a possibility that I won't hold this phone right now?

Yes, yes.

How could I, if it is ordained and I can't go against God's will, how is it possible, if it's the will of

God for me to hold this phone right now, how could I go against his will?

It would be possible if God ordained that you go against his will.

But that would be going with his will, because his will would be to have me hold the phone.

It wouldn't be me going against his will.

His will would be for me to hold the phone.

Isn't that correct?

Well, if God has a prescriptive will in a moral sense, then he can certainly allow you to act in a

manner consistent with your own immorality and work against God.

But if God desires that you hold the phone, then what he'll do is when he desires that you don't hold the phone,

he will arrange it so you don't hold the phone.

But he will do all of those according to the freedom that you desire and you want in your rebellion against him and

trying to demonstrate how his sovereignty isn't true.

Is my desire to sin part of God's plan?

Yes, it's part of God's plan.

Can I go against God's plan?

Yes and no, depending how we define our terms.

As I said, what your problem is, you're not being specific.

You're being general and far too general, and you're trying to imply certain things without

specificity.

So you need to be more specific.

You just say his decretive will, his direct will, his indirect will, prescriptive will, because this is

where the issues need to be discussed, which is why in our past discussions, I've brought these up.

In our discussion here tonight, I've brought these up.

You have understood, to some degree, some of them, having defined them.

And now what you're doing is abandoning them, and you need to use them.

What will falls under predestination?

I'm not sure I understand the question.

So you're saying there's different wills, right?

You have permissive will, decretive will, right?

So if God predetermines that I'm going to sin, predestined because he plans it out from the very beginning, what will is that

falling under?

When God predetermines that you sin, what he's doing in what you're talking about, what he's doing

is predetermining that you have the freedom within his sovereign decrees.

You have that freedom to rebel against him.

That's what that means by that.

I hope you're answering my question.

I'd like you to answer my question.

Well, my question was, what will, when God decrees that I'm going to sin,

that I'm going to act against him, what will would that fall under?

That would be his permissive will.

So, well, wasn't the permissible that he allows me to sin, but I was saying that he directly, he wrote that I would

sin.

So he actually preordained that I would sin.

Okay.

Now that's an extra.

What you're doing is you're kind of adding something here.

You're saying, well, also you're freely sinning, but what I'm trying to understand is how

I can freely do something.

How can I freely do something if I can't go against his will?

Okay.

We're having a problem here, and the problem is that what you're doing is you're conflating predestination,

decree, free will, permissive will, decretive will.

Answer my question.

You're not answering my question, sir.

I'm trying to get you to ask a question that is answerable.

Well, you can try, but that's not the point of what you're doing here.

You're here to answer my questions at this point, just like I'll be there to answer your questions in just a moment.

Now, I think you're very much aware.

Now, is it the decretive will that causes everything to be?

What will is under predestination?

Decretive will, correct?

There are different senses in which we can say decretive will and predestined will, so I'm not able to answer your question.

Okay.

I'll leave that up for the audience, then.

With my hat analogy, in your scenario, would I have the ability to keep my hat on if I wanted to keep

the hat on?

If God had decreed that my hat would come off, is there any way that I could keep that hat on, except for God

decreeing that I would keep my hat on?

If God decreed you keep the hat on, then you would freely keep it on because he decreed you would freely keep it on.

Well, I mean, adding the word freely to it doesn't actually mean anything.

Yes, it does.

Hold on, hold on.

This isn't for you to –.

I didn't ask you –.

I'm saying what I want to say here.

Feel free to say as much as you want to say when you're asking me questions here.

So saying something like, I have freedom, but

you're not actually articulating what the freedom is because the problem with what you're arguing is that people can't go

against God's will.

They can't go against God's will.

What God has already predestined will happen.

You've already admitted to that.

So I'm asking how I could, if it's predestined, if it's God's will –.

I could read what predestined means once again.

Predestination is the doctrine that God has foreordained.

Foreordained is the same as predestination, which means God ordains what will happen in history and salvation.

People cannot go against his predestination.

So if God ordains that my hat will come off, how can I

keep my hat on unless God says the only thing you could

say is that unless God tells me I can keep my hat on.

So I'm trying to understand what is the mechanism in which I could go against God's will.

I'm not sure I understand your question.

It was a long question.

What is the mechanism in which I could go against God's will to

take my hat off?

If it is willed by God that my hat will be removed, what is the mechanism in which besides just saying

that, well, the mechanism would be God allowing you to take it off because he's not allowing me.

What he's predestined is that my hat will come off.

What is the mechanism in which I could keep my hat on if I willed it?

You cannot go against God's will if he has decreed that you take your hat off.

Exactly.

So I don't have free will in that situation.

Am I allowed to respond to that statement?

No, no.

I just want to – I mean, sure.

Articulate how I have free will in that situation.

Free will is the ability to make choices that are not coerced.

So you have not established how God is coercing you to do anything.

Okay.

That's good.

Well, I'm forced to – I can't go against God's will.

So how do I have the choice to do something?

If I can't go against God's will, I am being coerced.

I am being –.

I am following exactly literally everything that I'm doing.

Every word that I'm saying is exactly as God has planned it out and exactly what he's wanted for his good

pleasure.

So I'm asking you how I could go against –.

Well, you actually answered my question.

You said I can't go against his will.

So I'm trying to figure out how I have free will if I can't go against his will.

Well, you don't want me to explain the problem you have.

You only want me to answer questions in a certain form.

So if you give me the freedom to explain it as I did before, we could go over it again.

It's up to you.

Well, I'd just like to know how I could have free will if I can't go against his will.

I'm not allowed to ask you questions, so I can't answer the question.

That's my question.

How can I have free will if I – and you define – let me just define free will again for everybody.

Free will, this is your website.

This is your definition.

Freedom, free will is the freedom of self -determination and action independent of external causes.

God is the external cause of me taking off my hat if God decrees it.

God is the ultimate cause of everything.

He wrote out everything.

So how is it that I could have self -determination and

actions independent of his external causes if I can't go against his will?

I'm not sure which will you're talking about since they're the decretive, prescriptive, and permissive.

So I'm not sure how to respond to your question.

I'm not talking about the permissive will.

I'm talking about the will – like I said, you said I believe it was.

The decretive will is what you said in which everything is preordained.

Actually, let me just look real quick.

The decretive will is that which God's sovereign will that we may or may not know depending on whether or not God

reveals it to us.

The decretive will is God's direct will where he causes something to happen.

Is it the decretive – well, actually, you answered earlier.

You told me that it was the decretive will that causes everything to happen.

So I'm talking about the decretive will.

Okay, so decretive will.

How is it that you can have self -determination if he has he exercises his

decretive will?

Yes, because part of his decretive will is his sovereign – is his sovereignty.

Sovereignty is the right to do what he wishes, and it is what he has preordained.

So what I'm asking is how if I can't go against his decretive will, which is to take off my hat,

how can I keep my hat on if he's preordained?

That I will take it off?

The decretive will examples that I gave you were such things as God saying, let her be light.

And he directly causes a direct action by his will.

So when you say taking off your hat, this is an issue of your free will.

I believe that you are misapplying the issue of his decretive will to something else and making an error

in so doing.

When God says don't murder, is that his prescriptive will or

his prescriptive will?

It's called the prescriptive.

It's what it really is supposed to be.

I may have mistyped it someplace, but it's his prescription.

Don't lie.

Don't murder, etc.

So his prescription.

Okay.

Let's see here.

Would there be sin in the world if God had not

planned out the world exactly as he had planned it out now?

Of course not.

So God is the author of sin?

Nope.

How is God, if God planned everything out, how did he not plan out

that people would sin?

How did he not create sin?

If sin is that, well we don't have to get into the definition of that, but if God

preordained that people would sin, and he actually created these sinful mechanisms like child molestation,

rape, genocide, how is he not responsible for it if people who

commit genocide, rape children, things like that, can't go against his will?

If he can't go against what he's preordained?

Let me put it that way.

If God has preordained, which he has, everything that's happened throughout history, God has preordained that people

will molest children, commit genocide, how is it that

people can go against what he preordains?

Or can they go against what he preordains?

You kind of switch back and forth between terms, demonstrating that you are not using them properly, and

in so doing you're failing to understand the argument.

And what you are doing is...

Can I ask you a question, sir?

Yes, I am.

No, that's not, actually you're talking about me and what I'm confusing.

I'll repeat the question for you.

If God has foreordained everything, and I'm going to read

the definition foreordained again, once again, it says it's the same as predestination, which means that God has ordained what will happen in history

and in salvation.

Can any human being do otherwise than what God has

preordained?

No, I've already answered that.

Okay, so exactly.

So people can't go against what God has preordained.

What is preordained is that which has happened throughout history.

So people are only doing what God has ordained them to do.

Is that correct?

In one sense, yes.

In another sense, no.

Can you explain in one sense how it is what they're doing, and in the other sense, please?

Depends on what you mean by preordination.

Exactly.

Hold on, I'll give you the definition once again, because I read it, that's why I gave you it.

In the same as predestination, which means that God ordained what will happen in history and in salvation.

So whatever happens in human history is preordained by God.

That's the sense in which I mean, which it is planned out.

Please.

So as I was about to say, before I was interrupted yet again, was that in

God's foreordination, there are direct causations and indirect causations.

And so we can have the indirect causation within God's permissive will.

So when we say that God ordains whichever shall come to pass, Ephesians 1 .11, it does not mean that he causes

people to sin, but that the ordination that he has and he has allowed allows people in

the freedom of their will to rebel against him.

That's the whole thing.

And you keep misrepresenting that when you're questioning.

OK, so God has preordained all that's

happening.

He preordained people would sin.

I'm still trying to figure out how if people can't go against what God has preordained,

if what people do is preordained to God, it's written by God.

I'm still trying to figure out how there is some type of way that they could do some difference.

And your definition of free will is the freedom to self -determination and actions independent of external causes.

Well, would you disagree that God's wills are external causes?

God's wills are external causes?

Let me reword it.

Is God's, how do I want to say this?

Things that are foreordained by God.

Those are, how do I want to say this?

Those are external causes.

If you foreordain something, he foreordained the whole world, everything that was going to happen.

The reason people are doing it is because God caused it.

Is that correct?

In one sense, yes.

In another sense, no.

There's direct and indirect causes.

So all you mean when you say indirect and direct causes is just one, which I don't even know how you can make

honestly a distinction here, to be frank, because he wrote out exactly what was going to happen like a book

or a blueprint.

All you're talking about indirect, direct is just methodology.

It's going to happen either way exactly as he will.

How he does it is actually somewhat irrelevant because what we're talking about is in the end, no

matter what the methodology is, people can't go with what he's already foreordained.

He's written exactly what's going to happen within human history.

So I find it difficult to try to understand how you're, why you're

even making the distinction because it really doesn't matter the methodology, whether he's personally causing it

or sets up the pieces.

I mean, whether he makes a person molest a child or he sets up the environment to where a child will get molested, I

think in the end, it doesn't really make much of a difference now, does it?

That's a question.

That was a long question.

It is.

Well, it wasn't all a question.

It was somewhat of a statement at the beginning, but the end of it was not a question.

Could you rephrase the question, please?

Yeah, absolutely.

It doesn't really make a difference whether he directly causes something or

indirectly causes something if the outcome is exactly the way that he wanted it to happen.

In the end, whether he indirectly causes something or directly causes it, the people involved can't go

against what he's preordained.

So really just telling me that, hey, it's indirect or direct decrees

isn't really, it's not dealing with the issue.

And that's what I'm trying to get you to understand.

You can just comment on that if you'd like.

I've already gone over it.

That wasn't a question, so.

Okay, I'd like you to answer my question.

It wasn't a question.

You made a statement.

You said it doesn't make any difference if the cause of his sin, people can't go against it.

Does it make a difference?

Does what make a difference?

Whether you, if the outcome is going to be the same, does it, talking about the difference between

direct and indirect decrees doesn't really make a difference if the outcome is the same because

all you're doing is talking about methodology.

Actually, don't even worry about answering the question.

I'll just talk for 19 seconds.

All you're saying is about methodology, right?

You're not actually dealing with the idea that people can't go against what God preordains.

All you're talking about is how God gets it done and how God gets it done is irrelevant to the actual issue.

Thank you.

Okay.

Did you want to ask the one last question?

Oh, no, I'm good.

Okay.

All right, Matt, your turn.

Whenever you're ready.

Wow.

Let's see.

Are you able to lay out a premise and premise logically on why God's

decrees that work within the permissive will of God means you can't freely choose to do

something?

Within the minute or two I have the answer, no.

It would take me some time to be able to lay out that premise.

I think you meant that earlier, too.

Would you be willing to do that and email it to me?

Sure.

Yeah, I can do that for you.

Absolutely.

Good.

Could you do it by the, say, next week, Friday next week, a week from tomorrow?

I can try.

I'm starting a new job this week, Matt, but I'll definitely put an attempt in to kind of put them in premises for you.

I just got a lot of things going on, to be honest with you.

Okay.

So do you understand or, okay, could you please explain the difference

between direct and indirect cause?

Yeah.

So this is actually, I tried to look it up on your website, actually.

I didn't find the point.

It said indirect.

Indirect.

I found the direct cause.

But direct would be, as you put on your website, that which God's sovereign will

may or may not be known depending on whether God reveals it to us.

The decree of will is God's direct will where he causes something to be.

He decrees it, for example, God has caused the universe to exist as well as Christ incarnation.

An indirect decree would be basically sets up the pieces to where something will happen.

He sets the environment up to where a particular will will come to fruition.

That's my understanding of it.

In the indirect decree of God, are people still responsible for what they do?

I don't believe in Calvinism.

So are you asking me under your position?

Do you guys believe that?

We're going with what has been stated so far, the definitions you're giving in God's indirect decree.

Where he can bring things about by using circumstances and various things.

Is he causing people to sin by his indirect means?

I don't have a definition of indirect decree up here.

It wasn't on your website.

Or at least I didn't find it.

I will say that I would say that you would say no.

That's what you've told me before.

I didn't ask you to say what I said.

I asked you to say what the issue was.

No.

You are arguing against my position.

I asked you a question about logic.

And I asked you to demonstrate something.

So you didn't answer the question.

I don't understand.

Say the question.

Can you explain?

Okay.

Can in the indirect cause, which means that God is not directly causing something.

But allowing people to freely act in that free act.

And they sin.

Is it God's fault or their own?

My opinion is it's God's fault.

So you're saying it's God's fault when people freely choose to do what they want to do.

I don't believe they freely choose to do what they're doing according to your definitions.

You say that God preordains everybody to do what they're going to do.

They don't have a choice.

God wrote it out ahead of time.

In my definition, I said that they do freely do this.

I said this specifically.

I said God indirectly brings about their free will choices.

I stated this before.

God brings about circumstances.

They freely do something.

I said they freely do something.

Is God then responsible for their sin in their free will?

In my opinion, yes.

But under your opinion, no.

I asked you is, not an opinion.

Can you just show me the logic of how it is that

God, who ordains that someone freely does something, by definition means it's their own will, that they're

choosing it.

That means that God is responsible.

Can you explain how that's possible?

What I'm saying is what's being articulated.

They aren't freely doing it.

That's what I'm saying.

You could say they are, but that's not what's actually happening.

Well, that's what you're asserting.

But this is what the debate is about, and I've already shown you as an example of the hat analogy, that I can cause

you, I can directly cause you to do something freely.

So let me ask you.

If we were sitting in the same room, and you were unaware of this line of reasoning about your hat,

and I said, hey, what's it on top of your hat?

And you took your hat off to look at it, have I forced you against your will to

do anything?

In that specific scenario where a human being is tricking me into taking my hat, no.

But this is a different type of scenario than God.

The answer is no.

So have I violated your free will?

No, but you're not God, and that's not the answer.

No?

I'm just giving you my elaboration.

When I try to elaborate, you cut me off.

Oh, no, it's fine.

You cut me off.

So in other words, you're saying that I can, as an illustration, cause you to freely do something.

Now, if I cause you to freely remove your hat, who's the one responsible for removing the hat?

You or me?

Sure.

In a human scenario that you're giving, it would be me.

Okay.

No, you are the cause to some degree.

Actually, you would be the cause because you basically tricked me into removing my hat.

Now, on my own free will in that situation, I removed the hat.

But this is a human scenario, just to be clear.

So you admit it.

It's of your own free will.

In a human scenario, yeah.

You're admitting that I can cause you to freely act.

In a human scenario.

Oh, yeah.

And since we're humans and God, Jesus is also human in his sovereignty

and the human thing of God and his knowledge, he can certainly work

circumstances and cause you to do something.

So let's just say that you didn't know that it was Jesus, according to Christian theology, that Jesus

himself is the one sitting across from you.

You don't know that.

I don't know if you're listening to me or not.

I'm listening to you.

And if Jesus were sitting directly.

Yeah, I'm just taking notes is what you're saying.

And if Jesus were sitting directly across from you, he said, What's that on your hat?

And he's God in flesh who ordains what shall come to pass.

If he were to have done that, would you have freely removed your hat?

No, because he would have decreed that I removed my hat if he was Jesus.

So in the exact same circumstance, when the exact same sentence is offered, if Jesus

does it, you don't have free will.

But if I do it, you have free will.

Would you like to know why?

Please.

Yes, I would like to know why.

Because with human beings, we have free will towards each other.

Under God's theology, as I've articulated and read your website, we don't have free will.

So whatever God decrees, Jesus decrees it's going to happen.

That's not correct.

That's not correct.

I did not say we don't have free will on my website.

I never say that.

No, I'm saying that you don't have free will.

No, you said on my website, I said I don't have free will.

That's not correct.

If I said that, then I misspoke.

No.

You did.

So in other words, if I say to you, what's that on top of your hat, you remove your hat, that's your free

will.

If Jesus is sitting there and he says, what's that on top of your hat, and you remove it, that's not free will.

That's what you're saying.

Because you're going to be talking with Jesus.

Well, yes, because Jesus would be decreeing that I would take off my hat.

I could not go against God, Jesus' decrees.

It would be preordained that I would take off my hat.

In that sense, what does it mean?

That would fall under, well, it would fall under, let me say it like this.

It would fall under foreordaining something.

If Jesus had foreordained I was going to take my hat off, I don't know exactly what will it would fall under.

But if he foreordained that I would take my hat off, there's no way I could not take my hat off.

I mean, there's no way I can keep my hat on.

I'm sorry.

So as I have explained before, the decreative will of God is such things as let there be light, the

direct causation of God.

If Jesus were sitting in front of you and said, what's that on top of your hat?

Is that a direct decree?

If he asked me, is that a direct?

No, he's just asking me what's on top of my hat.

And so it's not a direct decree.

So you should not say that it's a direct decree.

Is it an indirect decree if he asks you what's on top of your hat?

Well, it's not a decree at all.

He's just asking me a question.

Very good.

So it's not a decree.

It's a question.

So if he's asking you a question, is he forcing you to do anything by asking you a question?

Since it's not a decree.

I mean, if you're just asking if someone says there's something on my hat, no, it's not a decree.

But I think this is really missing the point.

So you said it's not a decree if he were to ask you a question.

And yet he asked you the question.

And because of it, you took off your hat.

But yet you said it's not a decree.

So therefore, without God's decree, have you been by his will caused to freely

take your hat off?

What we're in the realm of is we're not talking about decrees right now.

You're just talking about a hypothetical where Jesus tells me to take off my hat.

This has nothing to do with our actual topic.

Yes, it does.

I just disagree with you.

Hold on.

I'm asking the questions.

I'm asking the questions.

You've already stated that the question is not a direct or indirect decree.

You've also stated that if I were to ask you the exact same question, your free will is not violated.

And you have been implying that since it's by God's decree that that violates our free will.

Since you further said that it's not a decree to ask you the question and you freely do it, then logically

you are the one supporting my case by saying such a question, which would bring you to the place of taking

off your hat, is not by the direct or indirect decree of God, but is in fact your own free will.

Yet God has required it of you at the same time.

By your admission of these things, you have inadvertently supported my position.

If you want to refute this, I'm going to ask you right now.

Please refute it from what you have already said, that it's not a decree of God

if a question is asked and you take your hat off.

Where when I ask it, it's your free will, but if Jesus asks you, it suddenly is not your free will.

Explain how that all works, please.

So when we're talking about human beings in an analogy, God's out of the picture.

We're not talking about some kind of ultimate purpose that's planned out.

There's no kind of predestination.

None of that's included when we're talking about human beings tricking somebody into taking off a hat.

Now if we're talking about God getting me to take off the hat, he's preordaining that I'll take off the hat.

And I can't go against what God preordains because he already planned it out from the beginning.

And you've admitted to that earlier that I can't go against what God has already preordained because that's exactly what's going to happen

step by step.

So that's why I would say these analogies that you're making doesn't connect because it's completely two different scenarios.

One of them doesn't involve any type of predestination, any type of wills at all.

It's just talking about a human being tricking somebody into taking off their hat.

So you admit then that you freely took off the hat.

Under which scenario?

Whether I was preordained to take off the hat in God's scenario or under a human scenario?

If I ask you, what's on top of your hat, and I get you to take off your hat, you freely have taken off your hat.

If Jesus asks you to take off your hat and you take off your hat, you're the

one saying it's not your free will.

But the situation and the questions are exactly the same.

Since you have already stated it's not by his decree, which you've earlier stated, if I remember

correctly, that his decree is the same as his predestination, and you've hinted it's the same as his

foreordination, that he's the one who brings all this by his foreordination, by his predestination, by his

decree.

But you yourself have said, if he were sitting there and asking you, it's not a decree.

Therefore, it's not predestined in that sense that you're using it, nor is it foreordained in that sense.

It's just a question.

Isn't that correct?

No, I think where maybe I misspoke or maybe what I was trying to get across didn't come up as clear.

What I'm talking about when I was saying Jesus asking me to take off my hat is not

necessarily a decree.

What I'm talking about is the bigger picture is the decree.

The preordaining something would be that it was preordained that Jesus would

get me to take my hat off.

It would be preordained by God and his plan that Jesus would get me to take my hat off.

And because God preordained it, therefore, I have no option but to take my hat off.

That's what I was trying to articulate, and I may have misspoke there, but to be a little clearer, that's what I'm saying.

And that's the difference between the two scenarios.

A human being has nothing to do with God.

One, it's preordained.

The other, we're just talking about a hypothetical of human beings tricking each other.

If a person does something according to his will that is not forced, is it a free will

action?

In what kind of scenario?

Are we talking within the Calvinistic worldview?

Are we talking about how I would define free will within a secular type free will?

I'm supposed to be the one asking you the question.

I'm just trying to understand.

I don't understand your question.

We haven't got into a secular free will view, so it's not germane to the topic here.

You're talking about Christian theology, Christian decrees.

I ask you, if a person does something according to his own will that is not forced,

is it a free will decision?

I don't believe so under Calvinism, no.

I don't think that you have free will.

I don't believe.

Well, no, the no is the answer.

The questions aren't for you to answer for a different position.

You've got to answer what your position is.

I thought that's what he just told me, not to use my position, the secular position.

I thought he told me to use the Calvinistic position.

We're arguing within what we have been discussing.

Your answer is no.

What you're saying then is you are denying that if a person does something of their own will,

it's not forced, that it's not a free will decision.

That's what you just said.

Is that correct?

You're saying it's not free will.

If a person does something according to what he or she desires, it's not forced.

Well, it is forced because God, as you said earlier, causes the desires for people to do those things.

So they didn't freely choose the desires.

No, but that is answering the question.

No, it's not.

They desire it because God foreordained they would desire it.

There's nothing free about if the desires they have are….

You didn't answer the question.

Ask the question again.

If a person does something according to his will that's not forced….

His will or God's will?

I said his will.

Skyler, if you do something according to your own will that's not forced, is it a free will decision that

you've made?

Without a God, yes.

Okay.

So you admit then that free will

is simply to be able to make a choice that's not forced.

Well, I went by your definition.

Free will is the freedom of self -determination and action is independent of external causes.

And nothing is external without external causes within your worldview.

I'm asking you a question.

I'm trying to determine what you understand free will to be.

You understand, for I understand, writing down what you say.

It's free will to simply build and make a choice that's not forced out of your own will.

That's what free will is.

I'm using your definition of free will.

Free will is the freedom of self -determination and action is independent of external causes.

In a cross -examination, he's asking, you have to give what you believe, not….

Oh, you're asking my definition of free will.

I keep asking you the same question.

I think you're stalling.

So let me ask you this again.

If you, Skyler….

That's why I said you, Skyler.

Remember?

Oh, okay.

Skyler, if you do something according to your will that's not forced, is it

free will?

I haven't really….

Yeah, sure.

I would go under that definition of free will would be….

Actually, let me think that out for a second.

Would I consider it free will?

I would consider free will, yeah, uncoerced.

I would consider free will having the ability to do otherwise.

I have the actual ability to do as I will.

It's not predetermined from the beginning.

I have a choice in the matter.

I can go against God's will.

That would be what I would consider free will.

Okay, you're answering my question.

If you, Skyler, do something according to your will that no one's forcing you to do, is it free will?

Yes or no?

Yeah, under my position, it's free will, sure.

Yeah, well, that's what we agree.

We agree that's what free will is.

I agree, even as a Calvinist, even as a Christian, that is what free will is.

I agree with that, so now we have the same definition.

Can you please explain to me how God, when he allows

you, Skyler, to rebel against him by your own free will,

is causing you to rebel against him?

I think that's what the issue is.

I don't agree that you have free will the way you're defining it.

Excuse me, you need to stop for a second because you are wrong.

I just went with your definition.

I said it's the same definition we have.

No, I said it's the same one.

I said it's the same definition.

Yeah, so what I was saying, to answer the question, I have a minute to answer this.

What I'm saying to you is that the way you were defining free will, the error

and where there's a problem is that in my definition of free will, I actually have a choice.

In your definition of free will, even though you say that you have a choice, what I'm articulating is you actually don't because

God has foreordained that whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

So if God foreordains that I'm going to punch somebody in the face, I don't have a choice on whether I can punch

somebody in the face.

I might feel like I have a choice, but there is no actual way I can go against God's

foreordination.

I resent that you took so long to answer, eating up my time.

You can resent it all you want.

Yeah, I do.

Now, look, I went with what you already agreed free will was, and then you say that's not what it is.

So you're being inconsistent.

Free will definition that you gave me is that you make a choice that is not forced.

That's what it is.

That's exactly what we teach as Calvinists.

That's what we teach as biblical theologians, as Christians.

That's what we teach.

And then I asked you, I asked you questions regarding that.

How is it that if God ordains that you freely take off your hat because you

freely choose to by asking you a question, that it somehow means you're not free since you're the one freely doing it?

Any answer?

I don't know.

I don't know what the question is.

I thought that was a statement.

I asked you the question.

We're out of time.

So I can ask you just to show the contradiction real quick.

Once again, people can't go against what God is preordained.

So you have to be able to go against what is preordained in order for you to actually have a choice in the matter.

That's how I would answer that question.

That's what I said in my statements.

Okay, that's time.

All right.

I'll reset the clock for closing of 10 minutes.

And Skylar, you'll go first.

Absolutely.

Give me a sec to get this.

All right.

Whenever you're ready.

Yeah.

So I think it's been pretty clear here.

I mean the only answer Matt has throughout this whole debate is that God gives us free will.

But then when we look at the definition of free will that he's giving, it doesn't apply to what's happening.

If we can – let's give his definition of free will again.

This is the freedom of self -determination and action independent of external causes.

Well, how is it possible that I can do any action without the

presence of external causes?

God has written it out like a book, folks.

He wrote the blueprint.

Everything, beholding this phone, me saying God bless rapture Jesus.

Like that's all preordained by God.

There's nothing I can do according to Calvinism to go against what is preordained.

Now Calvin – Matt can go over and over and over and keep saying, well, they're freely choosing it.

But the idea of having a freedom of choice or a certain type of free will

includes the idea that you have to be able to make another choice.

And you can't make another choice because if you were able to make another choice, you would be

going against what God has already preordained.

I find it funny.

I don't I think one of the things in good charity, we shouldn't try to think that people are trying to run out the clock or things like

that.

I think it's just kind of bad debate and to get so frustrated and upset with me.

I've been very – I admit that I've cut you off because I wanted direct answers to my questions, but I didn't really appreciate that.

But whatever.

It's a debate.

Things get heated.

It was much better than our older one, our last debate.

So like I said, exactly what I thought would happen, this debate happened.

There was no articulation of how I have the ability to freely choose something.

And the ability to be able to freely choose something means that I have the ability to go against it.

I can't go against God's – what he has preordained.

And what he preordains is through his wills.

Everything that has happened from the very beginning, and I'll say it again because I think it's just so important.

Like what is predestination?

It's the doctrine that God has foreordained all things which will come to pass.

When I sin, it's because God has foreordained it.

Now, how do I have the ability to not sin if I can't go against what

God has foreordained?

How is that possible?

All you're going to – all Matt Slick is doing is just saying, well, he gave you the way to freely choose it.

Now, you notice with this hat analogy, like it's conflating two different completely topics, talking about what

human beings can do and trick each other in this idea within a worldview that human beings have an idea of free will

and what he's articulating is completely different within Calvinism.

In the human scenario with the hat, like things aren't written from the very beginning.

These things weren't foreordained by God in the scenario with the humans.

This is why I made a point to actually ask why are you when Matt goes into asking me questions

about things in my secular worldview, it's completely irrelevant.

It doesn't matter my secular worldview, how I view things.

He's the one who's making the argument that people have free will.

My idea of free will or my definition of free will, hey, I could be someone who doesn't even believe in free will.

Matt might argue that I'm just chemicals in my brain.

I'm just chemical reactions happening.

It's just determinism because of the way that we're made.

I'm not saying I agree with that, but I don't even have to believe in free will in this scenario.

But what this is is a tactic to distract from Matt having to actually articulate

the mechanism in which somebody can freely choose to do something while at the same time

not be able to go against it.

What Matt's saying really is that within the blueprint, God created the desire for me to sin.

I can't go against that desire.

I have in the blueprint God said that I would commit sin.

I cannot not sin because I can't go against the blueprint.

And then he wants to throw on top of that, but you freely choose to do so.

So the only thing I can translate that to that would at all kind of make sense would be the concept that I just feel

like I'm making a choice.

Because if all of my desires and choices are predetermined,

how is that, as he defines free will, the freedom of self -determination and actions

independent of external causes?

If he creates my desire, how is that independent of external causes?

He is the one who caused me to desire to sin.

How is it if God caused me to sin, how is it that if I don't have self -determination,

I'm not determining my future?

I'm not determining what I'm going to do.

Everything is written out.

And frankly, I don't understand how Calvinism thinks this is at all rational.

This is at least at the bare minimum contradictory.

What else do I want to talk about here?

Predestination, decree of will, freedom of will, compatibilism, election.

I think we have a moment.

I have a couple more minutes.

I'll talk about election a little bit because this goes in the idea of free will also.

So I don't have the free will to choose to worship God.

God has to give me that grace.

God has to offer me that grace.

He has to write it in to the blueprint.

He has to predestine me in order for me to choose to

accept Jesus.

I can't do it on my own.

This is the whole thing I was reading earlier with the Arminian and Calvinism thing.

Let's read it again because I want it really to be clear.

There is however controversy as the nature of predestination in the reformed Calvinist camp.

Predestination includes individuals.

In other words, that reformed ‑‑ sorry.

Read that again.

In the reformed Calvinist camp, predestination includes individuals.

In other words, the reformed doctrine of predestination is

not predestined.

And that without his predestination, none would be saved.

The non‑reformed camp says that God predestined people to salvation.

I'm sorry.

The non‑reformed camp states that God predestined people to salvation.

But they freely choose to follow God.

So under Calvinism, I'm not freely choosing to follow God.

In fact, what you guys believe as Calvinists, these

people freely choose to follow God.

In other words, in the non‑reformed perspective, God is reacting to the will, the free will of the individuals.

And predestined them only because they choose God.

Whereby contrast, the reformed position states that people choose God only because

he predestines them to.

And what does it mean to predestine?

I'm going to just nail this down as many times as possible because it's so important.

It means, which is the same as preordained.

Make sure I get this.

It's the same as which means that God ordains what will happen.

So God just basically ordains that they'll ‑‑ what was the preordination?

He chooses that they'll have grace.

And once again, it doesn't have to do with what they do, their choices.

But what they do doesn't matter anyways because God already written it out.

Do I want to hit anything else?

I think now I'll wrap it up here.

I just want to say thank you for hosting the debate tonight.

This was a fun time.

I had a good time.

Thank you for hosting.

It was pleasant, respectful, and I think that we had a good conversation.

So thank you.

All hail Raptor Jesus.

Matt, I'll reset the clock, and you can start whenever you're ready.

You're muted.

There.

There we go.

All right.

So this is it.

We're done after this?

Yeah.

Okay.

Schuyler has a better than average understanding of a lot of atheists might have

of predestination, fortunation, election, things like that.

And I will say that because he's gone to my website and done some homework.

But there are other issues worth discussing and worth going through, which I've repeatedly brought out in

our debate, which he has repeatedly failed to really differentiate in them sufficiently.

When we talk about the issue of free will, I specifically asked him in our conversation if

free will was that unforced choice that a person just does.

He said, yes, that's what we Calvinists teach is free will.

What's interesting is to say that me, a Calvinist who defends Calvinism, says that's what we teach as Calvinists, that it is

free.

We have a freedom.

And we act according to our nature, according to our will.

And we act in a manner that's consistent with our nature.

We're not being forced to do things.

That's what it is.

That's what he says it is.

I say that's what we say it is.

We also say as Calvinists that God ordains our freedom.

That God can certainly work within circumstances to bring about what he desires.

And I gave illustrations on how this kind of a thing could be done.

I talked about the removing of the hat illustration.

I talked about making me walk left or right.

There are various things that God can do to bring about the will that he desires by

freely working within or working, I should say, within my freedom of will in order to

bring me to do what he desires.

There's no logical impossibility there.

There's no logical contradiction there.

Not a problem.

This kind of illustration is what we use when we discuss the issues with God.

Certainly God knows all things and he knows exactly what circumstances to bring to bear in

which certain people will do exactly what he desires them to do.

And in so doing, it's freely done.

Just as God could ordain that I turn left or right by bringing something to

bear in a certain position.

Knowing this is how I'm going to be.

This is how I'm going to react.

This is what he will do.

And he can do that.

There is no problem there.

And this is something that Schuyler has repeatedly abandoned and repeatedly ignored and repeatedly

just basically, I think once or twice, just basically dismissed.

For the most part, he's ignored it.

Well, God has the ability to ordain what we do.

And he does because in the Christian economy, the Christian theological perspective, God works all things after

the counsel of his will.

All things by logical necessity within Christianity means that God is able to bring about even our free will

choices to the ultimate end of what he desires will occur.

Only if you think in a less than Christian perspective regarding

the nature of God, the omniscience of God, the sovereignty of God, the will of God, as

it respects the ability of God to ordain what we do in our freedom.

Only if you fail to see those issues as they relate also to the creative, prescriptive, permissive

wills of God and direct and indirect causation that God can have.

When you fail to see these, then you have these problems.

And I'll admit that there are people I have to discuss this with at length in order to get them to

understand certain things because they don't have the expertise and the training to be able to go and see how these things work.

But it does simply work like this.

By definition, a choice is free if it's not coerced, if it's consistent with a person's

nature, his essence, and consistent with his desires, not forced.

Schuyler has admitted that and I've admitted that.

That's what we hold to.

And it's certainly possible that God can arrange the circumstances by which a person freely chooses to do

whatever he freely chooses to do.

And it's because God has ordained that the person freely chooses to do it.

And here's the catch.

God freely ordained that they freely do what he wants them to do.

Is that possible?

Yes.

Is it a contradiction?

No, it's not.

Because nothing in logic says that God can't bring to bear what he wants me to do

freely.

As I've illustrated with the hat, with the turning left, with various things, it's certainly possible that

it can be done.

And Schuyler has not presented anything to refute the logic of the position.

He says there's problems and hopefully what he'll do is present a logical premise to me

in an e -mail to which I will then respond.

Maybe I'll even publish it on CARM.

So I'd hope that he would take this very seriously.

And let me see my notes.

So when you say that God has foreordained, he has foreordained that you will really rebel against him in

his prescriptive will.

Well, yeah, God foreordains that people will rebel against him, against his prescriptive will.

But foreordination does not mean direct causation.

It means that God has foreordained by giving permission to people to act

and decide and to will to do things in a manner inconsistent with his revealed will

morally, his prescriptive will.

God says don't lie.

He permits people to lie.

So he ordains that they lie.

But the ordination does not mean causation.

And this is where Schuyler really misses the issue because he conflates the issue of

causation in one sense with indirect and not causation in another and tries to imply that one

means the other.

And that's not the case.

And as I've had many discussions with this, some very competent theologians and read many, many pages on this,

this is differentiation that we repeatedly see and are bringing up, which he repeatedly fails to bring into

the conversation.

And I know why.

It's because he has an agenda.

And the agenda is to demonstrate or try to demonstrate that the idea of Christian theology is incoherent

and that God, who knows all things, decrees all things, ultimately, in a broad sense, as I said earlier,

is the one who does these things and that we are so freely able to do that.

And we see this in Acts 4, 27, 28, where God predestines people to bring Jesus to the cross.

And they did this.

And yet in Acts 2, 23, it clearly tells us that they are the ones who are responsible for the actions that

they did.

Now, we can understand their culpability in their own actions if their actions are free.

Now, when Schuyler says, well, they weren't free to choose contrary, well, that's not really the issue.

The issue is this is what they freely chose to do.

If they don't choose to do something contrary, it's because in their own free will they choose not to do something contrary.

It's not that they would have a desire to do something contrary and then they couldn't.

That's not how it works.

They freely chose to do this.

That's what free will is.

If they want to freely do something else, they would freely choose to do that.

And when to say they're foreordained to freely choose left, that means they can't choose right is the wrong question.

It means that they're freely choosing to do left.

This is what God knows in the circumstances, situations, I'll just work it that way, that they will choose.

They will freely choose if they're going to freely choose something else.

That's how that's going to work, too.

So what Schuyler is doing is actually failing to understand the true issue and making it what's called a non

sequitur and building something that refutes itself ultimately.

Now, if he wants to articulate it, I'm trying to read my notes here.

And how much time do we got left?

Also two minutes.

OK, so Schuyler has failed to demonstrate how one issue of God's sovereignty is

contradictory to man's freedom.

He has not demonstrated that one logical statement or one statement of truth means another

statement of truth is not possible.