RFG: Responding to Justin Brierley’s Premier Christianity Article Against Reformed Theology

Our mighty fortress is our God and our family

I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

They're following men instead of the Word of God. I'll never be a man's lover until it's completely

And I'm gonna be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet,

Standing on a stump and crying out, He died for all those who elected, were selected.

For still our ancient foes Have seen to what

God's throne is placed

Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth is not a place for you

I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

People of the world, that he gave his only begotten

Son, that whosoever Ladies and gentlemen,

James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

I said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

And now, from our underground bunker, deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate

Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

Radio Free Geneva! Broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

Yes indeed, welcome to Radio Free Geneva. Wearing a special Coogee sweater just for Justin Brierley, who

I'm sure wishes that he could wear something like this to work, but probably there are dress standards at Premier there in London.

We don't have any... This meets all of our standards just fine, thank you very much,

Rich. Anyway, good to have you with us. We announced we were going to be doing this program earlier on.

And by the way, just real quickly, for those of you who are listening live, I know this isn't relevant later on down the road, but just so you know,

Accordance Bible Software, 30 % off sale today, even including collections. When you do a big collection, it's a lot of money.

So we may show some, I don't know, we may show some text today, but whenever you see, whenever I'm showing the text on the screen, you see the

Greek, the Hebrew, the English, whatever else it might be, almost always that is Accordance Bible Software.

People frequently ask me what it is. And when they have a 30 % off sale through Monday on all sorts of stuff,

I even, well, not only did I buy someone a Christmas present that I've heard he's enjoying so much, it's like his first BB gun, but I even picked up a module today that was about 67 % off that will be very, very useful.

So I don't get any kickbacks on that. I'm not, I'm just letting you know it's a good sale, so you might want to check that out.

But we will be using Accordance Bible Software today in examining some of the things that are said in an article that appeared at premierchristianity .com.

I will, of course, link to it. Well, I'll try to remember to link to it. I intend to link to it when we post the video of this particular program.

Radio Free Geneva is, people ask, what is that? Well, it's just simply a special edition of the

Dividing Line where we examine objections against a reformed

Christianity. Sometimes the objections are really bad. We have taken on the best the other side has to offer.

But that's not the normative objections against Calvinism. The vast majority of those who reject reformed theology do so based upon normally pejorative misrepresentations, straw man, argumentation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And so we've dealt with those as well. Now, I have been on Justin's program more than a dozen times,

I think more than 15 times actually, somewhere between 15 and 20. I don't know. It's been a lot.

And I hope I haven't been on for the last time. But the reality is that that Justin works very hard, has worked very hard for years and sort of staying out of the fray.

But he can't completely do that. And when you're in studio and get to sort of watch, you don't hear it so much.

But you sort of you sort of start getting a little bit of a sense of where Justin's coming from.

And I've always appreciated he's been very, very fair to me, even when I was pretty certain he wasn't on my side when we were not.

You know, obviously, if he's had me take on Muslims and other people like that. But when we've had some of the other debates on the program,

I got the distinct impression that that he was on the other side of the of the argument.

But even then, and I don't think it's even aired yet. We did a program just a few weeks ago on the social justice statement with a guy from Sojourners or he works in Sojourners.

And, you know, I would imagine that Justin's more on the other side of that. But again, he seeks to be fair.

He seeks to ask appropriate questions. And we will seek, obviously, to be very fair in responding to his article.

But the reality is he stepped into the into the into the ring here. This is it's a it's a standard objection to reform theology.

It's very, very influenced by the John Lennox book. There's references to the Lennox book in here, as I recall.

And hence, it is a primarily philosophical set of arguments, as is

Lennox's book. And that leads us to one of the first considerations.

The reason I'm reformed is because of exegesis. I believe that God's revelation is is absolutely foundational.

And prior to anything else, it is what conditions our knowledge. Adam onward, Adam pre -fall,

Adam post -fall. Absolutely, absolutely dependent upon the revelation of God to have true knowledge of God's intentions and God's being and God's purposes and and everything else.

And so that is that even as I have been looking at Lennox's book, as I figured that would be very relevant to this particular program.

That's how we start in completely different places. And if you compare Lennox's presentation with my own and the

Potter's Freedom or God's Sovereign Grace or any of the books that I've written relevant that particular subject, you will see the fundamental difference.

Reformed theology begins with God. It begins the nature of God begins with the decrees of God.

It begins with God's freedom. It is a theistically oriented theology.

And it says we need to reason based on scripture top down from what the

Bible says about God, God's purposes, God, God's decrees. We need to we need to look at what the

Bible says about God, first and foremost, and only in light of what it says about God.

Do you look at man, the creature? You do not start with man and try to reason upward from man to establish categories for God's existence.

This will lead to error. This is the fundamental dividing line exegetically between the two sides.

I will argue this and will defend this and may end up doing a few programs on Lennox's book that came out a few years ago where I see exactly this very plainly.

Lennox's book begins in the first few chapters, not a single citation of scripture.

It's all C .S. Lewis and even one Supreme Court ruling from the

United States. And whether he realizes it or not, that foundation then becomes the lens through which he attempts to deal with scripture.

And that leads to a lot of the exegetical problems that are there in Lennox's book.

So anyways, with that said, Justin has weighed in with an article,

Why Both Atheists and Christians Need to Believe in Free Will. And like I said, I see a lot of parallel in the thinking, the thought between what

Lennox is saying and what Justin Briarley is saying here. And so I would imagine that Justin himself would say he's been very much influenced by that.

And so as we will see over and over again, the issue is going to be, where do you begin as a

Christian? What's the foundation of your epistemology? What's the foundation of your theology? What's the foundation of your anthropology?

And if you do not—well, obviously, if you do not have the highest view of scripture, you have no basis for being a

Calvinist. Almost every single Reformed denomination that has lost its footing in the highest view of scripture has eventually lost its theology of necessity.

Look at PCUSA, look at the liberal

Lutherans, whoever. Go back in history, see all—every denomination that put its foot on the path to eventual destruction.

And there have been many. That first step was almost always marked by a fundamental degradation of their view of scripture.

It's just the way that it is. So you must have the highest view of scripture, you must believe it is a consistent revelation.

And then, having established that, the next thing is you have to make the argument, and what it teaches us about God must be foundational to our understanding of who we are.

If we believe that our understanding of who we are is fundamental and foundational to what the

Bible can say about God, we are going to be very confused. The creature does not define the creator.

God defines his own purposes, God defines his own revelation. We are to see ourselves in light of who he is.

We do not look at him in light of who we are. Now you might say, oh wait, but we can't avoid that. Well, scripture does give us the ability to do that, if we are willing to do so.

So, with that said, it is interesting that this particular argument, why both atheists and Christians need to believe in free will, one of the things in Lennox's book, and I think the same thing is here too, is you don't have, certainly

Lennox in his opening statement, doesn't seem to recognize the very strong bias that he has in never really accurately defining what a reformed concept of free will is.

The contrast between an autonomous will, the fact there can only be one autonomous will,

I mean, by the very meaning of the word autonomous, autos, namos, law unto itself, there can only be one autonomous will, and it's

God's. God's freedom, the freedom of God's will, absolutely central.

And taught plainly in scripture. And that then conditions how we are to look at man's will, because man's a creature.

He exists for a brief period of time, has very little knowledge, very limited in his essence.

And how can his will fundamentally override the autonomous will of God?

That's one of the big questions. So, looking at the article,

I'm not going to read every bit of it, obviously, but I just want to accurately reflect it.

I already tweeted the link, and I've seen a couple of people have retweeted it as well.

And like I said, I will try to remember to make sure to link it when I write up the description of the program.

And we post the video and the audio over on Sermon Audio. Under Christian determinism,

Calvin may have written his theology 500 years ago, but his thoughts continue to influence much of the church today. And I would argue that part of that is, especially in this area, is due to,

A, the fact that Luther actually emphasized these things, but Calvin did so in a more systematic fashion, together with the fact that Geneva became such a center of Christian learning after Calvin, well, during Calvin's life, toward the end of Calvin's life, and then afterwards, which had such tremendous influence upon the

United Kingdom, Puritan movement, and things like that. But also, simply due to the fact that Luther and Calvin were pretty much just repeating what

Augustine had said long, long ago. On this particular subject, Augustine was not consistent in his theology.

We've talked about that as an interesting illustration for a long, long, long time. But once again, as B .B.

Warfield himself said, the Reformation inwardly considered was nothing more than the victory of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church.

And when you think that through, you can see what's being said there. But his continued influence is due to the consistency of his writing, consistency of his thought, as well as the consistency of his position with Luther, and then going back all the way to Augustine.

And I would argue before that, all the way back to Paul, but that's obviously part of the argument. Calvin was a key figure of the

Reformation alongside Martin Luther, the monk who rediscovered the truth that salvation was a free gift of God's grace without need of any efforts on our part.

I'm not sure that he rediscovered it as so much as trumpeted it. But then you have this very interesting statement, but Calvin took that thought a whole lot further.

I don't think that he did. You read Bonner as well. I don't see how

Calvin took that particular thought any farther. But then again, this seems to be both

Justin and John Lennox seem to argue in a similar vein here, but I think errantly.

If God's grace alone is sufficient for salvation, then we must have played no part in it at all.

It is interesting that Lennox does the same thing here, and I understand if you are on the synergistic side of things, it's not shocking that you would interpret those of us who are not as if we are.

Reformed theology is not going to be understood very well if you continue arguing bottom -up.

Well, because salvation is this way, then God must be this way in his sovereignty.

No, it's the other way around. In Reformed theology, the consistency of salvation by grace of a particular elect people goes back to the nature of God as sovereign over all things, creator of all things, and therefore creator of time and all the events within time itself, all leading to his ultimate glorification, the glorification of the triune

God. That's the purpose. God has a purpose. God has a decree. He's accomplishing those things, and he's using means in the process, and the means are the things that take place in time.

And that's what makes time real. That's what makes the events in time real and important and everything else.

But again, it's from the top down, and even this representation is from the bottom up.

Well, see, since if God's grace alone is sufficient for salvation, then we must have played no part in it at all.

Well, the point is that God has a sovereign decree, which includes his powerful grace, which includes the fact that there is a specific people called the elect, and that he is going to demonstrate all of his attributes, not only his grace and his mercy and his love, but his holiness and his power and his justice and his righteousness.

All of the attributes of God are going to be put upon display. And so, it's from top down, not the other way around.

In Calvin's mind, God had predestined those who will be saved and those who will be damned.

Again, notice the focus upon mankind, rather than in God's mind, the triune

God had chosen to bring about the glorification of the triune God in a particular fashion that involves the incarnation of the

Son, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the salvation of an elect people, which is steps down the road.

The Synergist, again, doesn't accurately represent the other side, because that's not how they think.

They're thinking man upward, we think God downward. And that ends up leading to differing ways of expressing things, obviously, that actually do have a fundamentally different way of...

Anyway, the lynchpin for this view was contained in Romans, Romans 8, 29,

For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. Well, yeah, sort of, part of a sentence.

But yes, there's predestination. The foreknowing there is a choosing action.

It's not a passive thing. And it results in the next verse to that final glorification.

So, all of salvation, the golden chain of redemption, laid out there in Romans 8, 29 through 30, which goes back to the foundation in verse 28, and then onward from there in a very consistent fashion into Romans 9.

According to many Calvinist theologians, the Bible also testifies to God's total and meticulous control of every aspect of life.

Well, according to Reformed theologians, that's the foundation of what you've already discussed. That comes first.

His unchangeability, his decrees, his self -glorification.

To make that an also, when it's actually the foundation that gives rise to the other, is one of the problems.

It's that application of a different mindset to Reformed theology. Whatever influence humans think they may have over their destinies, in reality,

God is the one who has planned it all out from the beginning. Well, if that's some way of expressing the fact that Psalm 135, 6,

God does whatever he pleases in the heavens and the earth. The 33rd Psalm, men plan, men scheme.

God plans, God schemes, God wins. He frustrates everything that they plan to do.

He accomplishes what he wants to do. Yeah, you know, Daniel chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar. Hey, you know, no one can stop him.

He does what he pleases. That includes amongst men, and not just in the natural realm, and not just in tsunamis, and earthquakes, and hurricanes, or whatever else it might be.

Not just in the natural realm, but all of those references in the Psalter, all those references in Scripture, are to God's interaction with free creatures.

And so, and this is one of my criticisms of the Lennox book, to define a free creature, or to define free will, without first examining what the

Scriptures themselves teach about what God's free will looks like, and what man's will in light of God's free will looks like, especially after the fall, is to make a philosophical position the ultimate authority, rather than a biblical position.

And that's exactly what you end up having take place there and here. And so, you know, in reality,

God is the one who has planned it all from the beginning. As Calvin himself wrote in the Institutes, creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.

Agree a thousand percent, and not certain how Justin, or Lennox, or anybody else gets past the rather plain statements of Scripture saying exactly that, at least while maintaining a high view of Scripture.

I understand how open theists do it. I understand that aspect of things.

But let me just give you an example. Oh, I don't know if anybody saw this, but Justin, if you want to call in,

I would sort of figure you would like me to go through this first, lay everything out.

I'm not sure that you know exactly what my objections are, but hey, I'm certainly not going to tell you you can't, but I'd rather if you would like to.

Again, coming to London, coming to London a number of times this year, have an invitation from a group up in Scotland to do a debate up there.

London's sort of my go -to location there.

As you know, I've walked over to the Premiere Studios a number of times from down along the

Thames, staying there. Be happy to have the conversation, but I would think, because I don't know, were you looking on Twitter?

Because you didn't point this out to me. That's nice. I don't know if you saw on Twitter, but Justin was saying, so do you want me to call in?

If you want to, but it's going to be a brief conversation because I haven't even laid out my issues yet.

But A, as you know, my biggest desire would be, let's do something in London.

If it's on the program, okay. But as you and I both know, that's pretty short.

There's a very limited amount of time. This is a huge area. We could do that, or maybe do that in conjunction with a real public disputation.

You know that I can do that respectfully. You know that I have a lot of respect for you, that I'm very appreciative of having been on the program.

I've helped you to get an American audience back when there weren't too many people listening over here.

So we've helped each other along, and I think you may have come to some of my debates. I'm not really sure or not, but you certainly can see them.

We can do it right, and between the two of us, we've got plenty of contacts in London to be able to do that.

That would be my real desire, would be to set something like that up in London where it wouldn't be brief snippets, but it would actually be a multi -hour exchange.

So I leave that up to you. You tell me what you'd like to do, but I would think that probably right now, you'd like to hear exactly what

I found to be troubling or in error, because we don't always, you know, not all

Calvinists are going to approach this in the exact same way. You may have already had some pushback from people, but my take might be, you know,

I've written a few books on this subject, been doing this for a while, and the objections that you raised are objections that I've dealt with a number of times in the past.

So leave it up to you, but, you know, I'd just like to lay this stuff out and hopefully do so in a respectful fashion.

So I'll leave that to you. That was five minutes ago, so I was fairly quick on that. I normally don't necessarily, while looking at an article or a text or something like that, see

Twitter, but it just so happens that I have my Bible program open right underneath Twitter. So that's how

I saw that. So what I want to do is have the quotation from Calvin here,

Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.

And then the question is asked, Has God predetermined every thought in every heart?

This perspective amounts to a deterministic view of reality. The world is the way it is and could be none other because God has determined every atom and every thought of every heart.

In such universe, human free will is an illusion if we mean by that free will as an autonomous will.

Yes. If we mean by that free will as a creaturely will, that is that God has the ability to set up time in such a fashion that we can be held accountable for what we do in time.

We don't know what his eternal decree is, but we are held accountable for acting upon the desires of our heart.

That's a completely different thing. And let me give you an example of this.

There are numbers of them, but what I want to do is I want to look at Isaiah chapter 41.

And in Isaiah chapter 40, well, the trial of the false gods in Isaiah 40 through 48, there are a number of texts in this section that I think are directly relevant to what we're saying and to the foundations of Reformed theology because the foundation of Reformed theology begins with God and begins with God's nature and begins with the assumption that a consistent interpretation of all of scripture, tota scriptura, sola scriptura, and tota scriptura, leads us to certain conclusions as to who

God is that then becomes the filter through which we are to look at man, not man being the filter through which we are to look at God.

And that is a perspective that is not natural for man.

The natural way for man is to start with himself and reason outward as if God is an object of knowledge like a mountain or a certain subject like mathematics or whatever else it might be.

The problem is, the biblical view of knowledge has got the center and we are out there and we have to relate to everything else through God if we're to have true knowledge and that's just not natural for us to think in that way unless we're instructed by God's word to do so.

And so, with that said, in Isaiah 41, coastlands, listen to me in silence, let the peoples gain new strength, let them come forward, let them speak, let us come together for judgment.

Who has aroused one from the east whom he calls in righteousness to his feet? He delivers up nations before him and subdues kings and makes them like dust with his sword as the wind -driven chaff with his bow.

He pursues them passing on in safety by a way he had not been traversing with his feet. Who has performed and accomplished it, calling forth a generation to the beginning?

I, Yahweh, am the first and with the last, I am he. That's Anahu Ego -Ami in the

Greek, Anahu in the Hebrew, relevant to other issues we won't get into right now. The point being, here is, if we know the history, this is a part of the prophecy in regards to Cyrus and bringing

Cyrus to power and what's going to happen with Israel when that takes place.

Now, let me just point something out. At this point, a lot of folks just sort of zone out.

Like, ah, you're talking about prophets and history, and I don't know. What does this matter to me?

The point is that what, this is Isaiah, okay? Same one who writes

Isaiah 53, the same one who writes Isaiah 6, the same one who writes

Isaiah 55. In other words, you know, we like it when Isaiah is talking gospel subjects, so we might want to check this out as well.

He's talking about something taking place in history that involved the free will decisions of tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of human beings.

And God says, I'm accomplishing all of this. I'm doing this for my own glory.

I'm doing it the way I've chosen to do it. I'm going to accomplish this. He names someone by name before they're born, which is, of course, why the naturalist goes, well, this couldn't have been written back then because no one can do that.

Yeah, there's the point. He names Cyrus by name before Cyrus exists and says

Cyrus is going to do X, Y, or Z. So the real question is, unless you take the, well, you know,

I'm not so sure that was really written back then thing. Did Cyrus have any choice about this?

In the sense of an autonomous, non -decreed choice.

Now, I believe that the Bible teaches, especially in light of Isaiah 10, that the decisions that we make are decisions that God acts upon justly as judge in judging our motivations and our actions.

That doesn't make them any less determined by His decree, but it does make them flow naturally from our hearts.

It's not as if God is forcing someone to do something they don't want to do.

God isn't the big cosmic bad guy forcing good people to do bad things. That's not what the

Bible is teaching, but it is teaching that God accomplishes

His purposes, He decrees events in time, and that includes the actions of human beings.

That doesn't make them puppets because if, again, my response to the puppet argument all along has been

Jesus wasn't a puppet. Jesus took on human flesh. He became flesh. And yet,

Acts chapter 4 says that everything that happened in His self -giving, the roles of Herod and Pontius Pilate and the

Romans and the Jews were predestined by God's hand. They weren't just trying to make things work.

They just happened to come together. This was the eternal purpose of the Father, Son, and Spirit. It's necessary that it takes place the exact way it did so it could fulfill the prophecies that had been given.

And so, if we allow the Scriptures to be the source that is going to answer these questions for us, then this is the direction we simply have to go.

We have to put together all of this. And in my perspective, the synergistic viewpoint has to ignore the vast majority of this kind of stuff.

I didn't even finish with Isaiah 41. And so you go a little bit farther down in Isaiah 41, and here again, in the context of the trial of the false gods.

I'm just going to move this over here so I don't have to be looking behind me. Present your case,

Yahweh says. Bring forward your strong arguments, the King of Jacob says. This is

Isaiah 41. Let them bring forth, this is the trial of the false gods.

The false gods have been brought into the dock, so to speak. They are being given the opportunity of testifying.

Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place, as for the former events, declare what they were, that we may consider them, and know their outcome, or announce to us what is coming, declare the things that are going to come afterwards, that we may know that you are gods.

Indeed, do good or evil, that we may anxiously look about us in fear together.

Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing. He who chooses you is Toeva, an abomination.

Now, you can see what is being said. Present your case.

Now's your opportunity. I'm not saying that to Justin. Present your case,

Yahweh says. Bring forward your strong arguments. Well, what's the challenge that is then given?

Let them bring forth and declare to us what is going to take place, over and over and over again, in the trial of the false gods, and elsewhere in the prophets.

Yahweh's knowledge of future events is brought forward as one of the primary evidences of His deity over against the false gods, of His supremacy over these supposed gods, of His sovereignty, and that's not a sovereignty that allows

Him to give up His sovereignty, that's a sovereignty where He is actually exercising that power to accomplish

His own purposes. And so, as you know,

Justin, it's one of my primary arguments against the open theists, is open theism fundamentally turns the trial of the false gods on its head, because God can't do what

He's claiming to do in these texts of Scripture. And you sat there listening to John Sanders and I go back and forth,

I'm sorry, John Sanders did not have an answer for these texts, other than to, in essence, lower the authority of Scripture and the context, not only the context of these prophetic utterances, but I don't know how you could avoid all the prophetic utterances, including those that Jesus Himself said testified of Him.

Messianic, prophetic utterances. Handle those texts the way that open theists have to handle texts like this and you don't have much left.

You don't have much left. So, then, and a lot of people miss this, verse 22, as for the former events declare what they were that we may consider them and know their outcome.

We catch and we understand the idea of, well, tell us the future.

But here, and this is very important, here the challenge is, tell us what happened in the past and why it happened.

That we may know their outcome. And I see historians can, with varying levels of accuracy, tell you what happened in the past, at least the fairly recent past.

But, you can be an eyewitness to an event and not know why it happened.

Las Vegas shooting, still haven't a clue. Drove by the

Mandalay Bay just a couple weeks ago while I was in Vegas visiting the grandkids and there's the

Mandalay Bay. Do we know why it happened? Nope, I don't. I don't think anybody else does.

I know it happened. I don't know why. As for the former events, declare what they were that we may consider them and know their outcome.

God knows why it happened because it's a part of God's decree. It's a part of God's purpose.

He knows what's coming, why it's going to happen. He's going to be fulfilling His purposes. It's all going to result to His glory.

And why it happened in the past. That is a sovereign God who is actually acting sovereignly as creator.

This is why I'm reformed. It's not that I was raised that way because I wasn't.

It's not that I was raised that way and now I've just tried to cobble together some text.

If we want to talk about who God is and how God is different from the false gods, you've got to start here and it has ramifications.

God says, I can tell you what happened in the past and why it happened. I can tell you what's going to happen in the future.

If you have mankind as an autonomous creature, I don't believe you can have this.

The simple idea of God sitting outside looking at what's going on, the fundamental result of that is not that you have a sovereign decree, but you have a

God who learns when he chooses to create. But the end result, he can't be glorified in because he's not the one that brought it about.

This, again, goes to when God created, did he know what was going to happen? That is a fundamental issue.

I believe that the Bible's clear about the result, about the answer to this, but what's more,

I think it is absolutely devastating to any meaningful Christian apologetic to have a

God who created all things, but wasn't really sure how it was going to turn out. It happened to turn out pretty well, but hey, maybe it could still get different in the future.

I don't know. So I go back to the article. This perspective amounts to a deterministic view of reality.

The world is the way it is and could be none other because God has predetermined every atom and every thought of every heart.

Notice again, God has predetermined what? Justin, you focus upon the creation.

God has predetermined to glorify himself in everything he creates. Turn that focus back upon God because that's where it starts.

He is determined to glorify himself in this fashion, in this means, by these avenues.

In such a universe, human free will, autonomous free will is an illusion.

We are playing our designated parts in a script that was written before the world began. If you want to flatten out the biblical revelations,

I can't stop you, but it is a flattening out. It is a flattening out. There's just no other way to put it.

Given that some people may only listen to this, and as I'm thinking about this right now, this may end up being more than one part.

I don't want to go so long that I, well, we had a late start time -wise in Phoenix as it was, so I don't want to go so long as to bore folks, but we may have to do more than one part because this deserves full treatment.

And obviously I would hope that Justin's audience would be made up of people who would want to hear it.

If you're still in Isaiah, go to Isaiah chapter 10, and in this text, you have an illustration of what

I was just saying. And that is since we are all playing our designated parts in a script that was written before the world began, let me read the rest of the paragraph.

To Calvinists, this is a testament to God's glory. To others, it looks like the work of a puppet master. Notice there's nothing in between.

Like an impossible optical illusion, the puzzle of free will can be confusing for many Christians, but they aren't alone.

And it goes on to atheist determinism, which is a very, very different thing, at least if you're comparing it to a meaningful presentation of Reformed sovereignty and the decree of God.

But I want to refute the puppet master idea and to emphasize the fact that this is a biblical teaching.

And that if we apply, if we use the same methodology of hermeneutics that has been used on the

Unbelievable Radio broadcast for decades, or over a decade, to demonstrate the resurrection, the deity of Christ, those types of aspects, those types of aspects of Christian truth, use the same set of hermeneutics, the same interpretational methodology, it leads us to this conclusion consistently.

Consistently. I won't go back right now, but I would invite people to consider deeply

Genesis chapter 50, and the insight that is gained there,

Joseph and his brothers, what has happened to Joseph, he's being sold into slavery, rising to power in Egypt, and then eventually revealing himself to his brothers, and then after the death of their father, they are now afraid he's going to kill them, and Joseph's words to them reflect a very mature and proper understanding of God's sovereignty in the affairs of man.

Because Joseph specifically says, you intended this for evil, that being the selling of him into slavery.

You intended this for evil, but God intended it for good. It's the exact same word in Hebrew, it's direct parallel.

God intended it for good, and to save many lives, save many people alive today. One action, human intention, evil,

God's intention, good. That's not one evil action that God then tried to turn around and make good.

God intended to send Joseph to Egypt, and he intended to send Joseph in the way that he did, which included suffering on Joseph's part, which included the sin of his brothers.

God intended it for good. That's what it says. I don't see any way to escape it.

It's straightforward. Joseph understood compatibilism. He did not excuse his brothers' sins, but it did not keep him from seeing the absolute sovereignty of God, even in the midst of their sin.

Another example of this is Isaiah chapter 10. In Isaiah chapter 10, and what

I like about this, and remember, in the Joseph situation, you have the actions of numerous free individuals.

Potiphar's wife is a free individual. Potiphar is a free individual. Pharaoh is a free individual. The brothers are free individuals.

The slave traders are free individuals. The baker and the butler and just all these human beings that are involved in the story acting upon the desires of their hearts accountable.

Potiphar's wife is accountable for what she did. She acted on the desires of her heart. It does not make her action any less of the result of God's decree.

You do not have here a chaste woman who was forced to do something bad.

No. You have a sinner who is used by God to bring about his purposes, and he has the right to do that.

I realize the potter and the clay bothers a lot of folks. That's not, doesn't fit into certain paradigms, but it's a biblical example.

You get to Isaiah chapter 10, and here you've got, again, literally tens of thousands of creatures involved.

Why? Because you have the Assyrians, and you have

God bringing the Assyrians against the people of Israel.

Now, this is in fulfillment of divine law,

Deuteronomy 28 and 29. Curses and blessings. If my people will violate the covenant, this is going to be the result.

And now, after a great deal of grace and patience and mercy, justice has to be done.

Fulfillment of God's promises. And so, Isaiah chapter 10, verse 5,

Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hands is my indignation. Rod of my anger, staff of my indignation,

I send it against a godless nation and commission it against the people of my fury to capture booty and to seize plunder and to trample them down like mud in the streets.

I'm behind this. I, Yahweh God, have commissioned

Israel as my people, and therefore, I have commissioned Assyria as the rod in my hand to punish them for their violation of the covenant that I made with them, which made them a people in the first place.

Yet, it does not so intend, nor does it plan so in its heart.

Well, yeah. Sort of an understatement when you think about it. I really don't think that the pagan

Assyrian king was sitting there going, you know, I think

I'll bring my armies against Israel because it's so obvious that Israel has violated God's covenant in her sinfulness, and therefore, we as instruments of righteousness are going to come and punish this godless nation.

Yeah, I don't think that's what he was thinking. But rather, it is its purpose to destroy and to cut off many nations.

Oh, so we have one event, we have one action taking place, which is involving thousands and tens of thousands of human beings on both sides, and God says,

I'm doing it, and the Assyrians think they're doing it for different reasons.

Hmm. For it says, are not my princes all kings? Is not Kalno like Carchemish, or Hamath like Arpod, or Samaria like Damascus?

As my hand has reached the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images were grayer than those of Jerusalem and Samaria, shall

I not do to Jerusalem and her images just as I have done to Samaria and her idols? There is arrogance in the heart of the king of Assyria.

See what I've done? See what I did to the northern kingdom? Well, that was all me.

I'm super powerful. That's what he's saying. So it will be that when the

Lord has completed all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will say, I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness.

Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger! Once I'm done using the rod,

I will then punish the rod for what? The pomp of his haughtiness?

I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the pomp of his haughtiness. Well, that's not fair.

Why not? Well, why isn't it fair?

Would it be fair? Was the king of Assyria a rebel against God? Answer, yes. Was he a pagan?

Answer, yes. Would it be just for God to simply have brought eternal punishment on him right at that point in time?

Yes. So why can't God use him to bring about his glory and to punish his people?

Well, because I'm not sure the constitution allows that. Yeah, that's about all you got.

That's about all you got. For he has said, by the power of my hand and by my wisdom

I did this, for I have understanding, and I removed the boundaries of the peoples and plundered their treasures. Like a mighty man,

I brought down their inhabitants. My hand reached the people like a nest. As one gathers abandoned eggs,

I gathered all the earth, and there was not one that flapped its wing or opened its beak or chirped.

I, I, I, I, I, all the way through. And then

God asks a rhetorical question. Is the axe to boast itself over the one who chops with it?

Is the saw to exalt itself over the one who wields it? That would be like a club wielding those who lift it, or like a rod lifting him who is not wood.

And again, people don't like this because it's likening us autonomous human beings to instruments, saws, and clubs, and axes in God's hand used as he chooses to accomplish his purpose.

And yeah, there probably is something against that in the EU constitution someplace, which is why y 'all need

Brexit. But anyway, yes, therefore the

Lord Yahweh of hosts will send a wasting disease among his stout warriors.

God will, God will send disease amongst warriors because of what their leader did?

Yeah, that's what it says. And under his glory a fire will be kindled like a burning flame, the light of Israel become a fire and his holy one a flame, and it will burn, devour his thorns and his briars in a single day.

He will destroy the glory of his forest and his fruitful garden, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away, and the rest of the trees of his forest will be so small a number that a child could write them down.

Now in that day the remnant of Israel and those of the house of Jacob who escaped will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on Yahweh, the holy one of Israel.

See, there is a redemptive purpose, but it's not redemptive of the Assyrians. It's redemptive of those who are the remnant of Israel, which we could then follow that in the

New Testament and election and all the rest of that stuff, but we won't for now. The point is, Isaiah 10 so plainly lays out

God's absolute sovereignty in the affairs of men, in the midst of decisions they are making, and says,

I'm accomplishing my purpose, and then when I use Assyria to do this,

I will then punish Assyria because I know the intentions of their hearts. And we go, that's not fair!

And I go, yes it is. He knows the intentions of everyone's hearts better than they do.

And will not the judge of all the earth do right? That's a rhetorical question.

So you have Genesis 50, you have Isaiah chapter 10, and of course, very briefly, you have

Acts chapter 4. And here in the most...

in the central action of the triune God, in redemption, the death of Jesus Christ, the church, having been persecuted, warned, beaten, gathers together, and prays, and says, for truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant

Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.

So there's four groups here. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the

Gentiles, which would be the Romans, which I... you know, the ones who did the actual crucifixion, and the peoples of Israel, who were standing there yelling, crucify him, crucify him.

So many different motivations. So many different motivations.

Herod and Pontius Pilate do not have the same motivations. Herod's a nut. Pontius Pilate is a political opportunist who knows that his advancement in Rome is dependent upon his keeping the peace in Jerusalem.

Very different motivations than Herod. Herod's not trying to get to Rome. And then you've got the

Gentiles, you've got the Roman soldiers just doing what Roman soldiers do. They're bored to death, they hate these people, they want to go home.

And the peoples of Israel, and oh, yeah, there's a lot of different motivations there too. But they've been exposed by this

Jesus of Nazareth. And what does the

Bible say in inspired words? To do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

Pro -oresen genestai, predestined to happen.

Hei kair su, your hand. Kai hei bulei su, your will.

Not ours. Not theirs. Yours. Your will, your hand, determined what these creatures, who will all be judged, did.

Different motivations, different elements involved. The same event prophesied, as we know,

Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, long before they happened.

I don't know how anybody fits open theism, or simple foreknowledge, or any of that stuff into a text like this.

I don't know how anybody does it. And I'm simply saying, if you take the exegetical methodology, the hermeneutics that we use to defend the deity of Christ, to defend the resurrection, and apply to these texts, that's what this teaches.

And I ask the question, why is it that so many people don't do that? Why is it, if we're really honest, that all of a sudden people who will use one exegetical methodology to defend the deity of Christ, one exegetical methodology to defend the resurrection, all of a sudden, when they apply that to these texts, well, you know, we are not really sure what's being said here, you know, and there's some doubt, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I'm just trying to be consistent. Just trying to be consistent. There is a decree of God.

God's hand predestined what took place with Joseph, Israel, crucifixion of Jesus, the hardening of the hearts of certain kings in the conquering of Canaan, so they would be destroyed and fulfill

God's purpose of punishment upon them. The holding back of one king from acting against Abraham's wife.

He was kept from sinning. God can do that if he so chooses. He's under no obligation to do that, but he can do it.

And once in a while he does. That king did not deserve that, but that's what happened.

Okay, so, then we have this line, and, you know, atheist determinism.

Calvinistic Christians have more in common with many atheists than they may realize. Determinism has also become a very popular philosophy among their godless counterparts for some time, prominent voices in atheist circles have also been announcing the notion of free will is past its sell -by date.

When I hear this, Justin, what I hear is the argument that Norman Geisler errantly used against Calvinists, and that is that Calvinists and Muslims have the same view.

I'm sure you're very familiar with the Islamic concept of Qatar, and Norman has said for a long time, and then his students repeat the same argument, that what you have here is the same fatalistic determinism on the part of Islam as on the part of Calvinists.

The problem is that's wrong on both levels. There are numerous

Muslims who do not hold to what would be a fatalistic understanding of Qatar.

There isn't a single view of Qatar, which you wouldn't expect there would be.

They have the same arguments about the nature of Qatar that we have regarding the sovereignty of God with,

I would say, a less firm foundation upon which to decide the issue. Be that as it may, when

I respond to Islamic, when I respond to that parallel to Islam, I point out, well, that's totally untrue.

And why is it untrue? Because the Islamic understanding of the transcendence of Allah could never allow for the personal action of God in time resulting in His own glorification, specifically the

Incarnation. You cannot compare the impersonal nature of Qatar with the personal nature of the predestining acts of God, the decree of God seen in Acts 4, 27, 28.

It's not possible. They are of a completely different category.

The Incarnation proves that from a Biblical perspective, the decree of God includes

God's own personal action within time, which includes the Incarnation, death or resurrection of Jesus Christ, outpouring of the

Holy Spirit, building of the body of Christ. God's actions in time validate the importance and reality of the events in time themselves.

That cannot be separated out. That cannot be separated out.

Well, obviously you already know them. You already know that that's the same response

I would give to this objection. For just as a law is so transcendent that there can be no personal interaction in time, which then becomes the foundation of affirming the value of actions in time, the atheist has no personhood at all.

The determinism of atheism, as it's being expressed today, is a mechanical, materialistic concept that is absolutely impersonal.

Absolutely impersonal. And so, the necessary parallel that your sentence assumes is that the personal, intimately personal decree of God in creation, which includes the

Incarnation, which includes the personal action of the Triune God in time, is to be paralleled with the nature of purposeless mechanical laws of gravity or whatever other impersonal laws determine how everything fell out the way that it did.

The formation of stellar bodies and the process of life and death of a star and supernovas and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

All of these laws are impersonal, and how they interact is random.

If certain things had been just slightly different in the initial conditions, then all would have been different.

But it's all mechanical. There's nothing personal about it at all. So, the only parallel between the two is that there is a certain outcome, but the entire mechanism and purpose and nature of why is completely different.

And unless you, Justin, hold to an open theistic perspective, which I hope you don't, but unless you do, you're sort of stuck.

Because if you affirm that God had complete knowledge of what was going to happen and can't affirm that there is a prophetic, there's a foundation for prophecy and scripture and so on and so forth,

I'm not sure you can escape the same kind of accusation of a form of epistemological determinism that leads to the same type of objection.

Now, I would never make that argument because I think there's a strong category error here.

But I leave that to you to see if you're consistent at that point. So, I'm not going to...

Popular atheist author Sam Harris wrote a book titled Free Will, which drawing on research and neuroscience argued that our innate sense of freedom is merely an illusion foisted on us by nature.

None of us is actually in control of what we do. So far, so Calvinist. No. That is not so far so Calvinist.

But rather than believing God has predestined us, atheists like Harris say the universe is responsible. Again, the universe is impersonal.

God is accomplishing His purpose. He has made us in His image. He has entered into our existence in the person of Jesus Christ that validates the reality that our decisions are valuable in God's sight and in the creation that He has made.

And that's why they're the basis of judgment and also the actions of Christ in His redemptive act.

The good things then become the basis of His being able to identify us as righteous through the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, both active and passive.

Another reason why it's important to talk to N .T. Wright about certain things as you have made possible in the past, which

I am appreciative. So that's one of the huge differences.

Okay? So later on, you have a section called

The Big Conversation. Are we determined to behave well? Which was interesting, but I'm not sure overly directly relevant.

But you gave the link to The Big Conversation show and you've done some things about that.

But let me get to some of the key issues down here below.

A God of love only makes sense if He has given us the ability to freely choose or reject

Him. In contrast, as a libertarian, Ward believes that humans are truly free creatures with the general ability to choose alternative outcomes in the future.

That we are neither subject to a puppet master God nor a puppet master universe matters a great deal.

Again, Justin, to limit it to a puppet master God or a puppet master universe is to skip everything that Calvin and all of his successors have said who have refuted the misrepresentation of them presenting a quote -unquote puppet master.

I started to explain this earlier on. I forgot to complete it. I got distracted, but what is very common and again, we've dealt with this from many, many different perspectives over the years.

What is very common is for folks to flatten out the biblical teaching into just two dimensions, either puppet master or everyone's free.

The scriptural revelation of God's interaction with his creatures in time is much richer than that. It's three -dimensional.

You might even say it's four -dimensional. We can't really think in that fourth dimension overly well, but the point is it is much deeper than a two -dimensional shape upon a piece of paper, either puppet master or this.

What you see in Acts 4, Isaiah 10, Genesis 50, and I believe in so many other places in scripture where that becomes foundational, is a three -dimensional object that then can be seen from many different perspectives.

Once you squish something down into only two dimensions, that's just it. What's on a piece of paper?

It's a simple either -or thing. But when you allow it to be the three -dimensional reality that it is, you can have the same perspective that Joseph had in Genesis 50,

Isaiah had in Isaiah 10, or that Luke expresses in the prayers of the early church in Acts 4.

On the one hand, you can see the interplay of the history and background and everything else of Pilate, Herod, the

Jews, the Romans, in the drama of the death of Christ. And that's looking at it from this direction.

Then you can look this way and you see the historical prophecies. Isaiah 53,

Psalm 22, they cast lots from my garments, pierced my hands and my feet. That's sovereignty.

And then you look at it this way, and they relate to one another, and you can look at it this way, and all the evil, the heart of man, and then this way the fact that God constrains that evil, the fact that in Genesis, God kept

Joseph's brothers from killing him. He restrained their evil. He didn't restrain all their evil, because it was very evil what they did, not only selling him into slavery, but all the evil of the deception of their father.

He's weeping, he's crying, they know, they won't say anything. That was rough.

Well, God could have stopped all that. It wasn't his purpose to. But he did keep them from killing him. You see, there's different aspects to it.

You squish it all down, puppet master or something else, then you're never going to see those things. It's too simplistic.

That's not the way to do it. It's not the way to do it. Losing love and justice.

Losing love and justice. Reflection on the subject has led me to agree with Ward.

The compatibilist view seems to quote Kant, a wretched subterfuge. Our free will is not truly free if determinism is still the bottom line.

So what you're saying is, you either have to have absolute autonomy of creatures, which I would argue is impossible if you have absolute autonomy of God.

There can only be one autonomous will in the universe, because if you have two autonomous wills and they run to each other, one's going to have to become supreme over the other, which means one, by definition, will cease being autonomous.

When God's autonomous will brings a tsunami into an Indonesian island, are the people that are killed by it still autonomous?

Same thing with earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, volcanoes. There can only be one autonomous will, and it's

God's. I think God's freedom is more important than the creature's freedom. It's amazing how many people are so very focused upon defending the freedom of man, not recognizing that once you destroy the freedom of God, all grounds of meaning, love, and justice are destroyed.

Right? But again, the difference here is, I'm reasoning this way, you're reasoning this way.

Our free will is not truly free if determinism is still the bottom line. Well, obviously we disagree on the meaning of the term truly free.

I don't believe that as a creature I can be truly free in the autonomous sense that you're saying, but I don't think the

Bible teaches that we are. I've already given you, now, numerous texts that indicate that.

Was the king of Assyria truly free in the sense you're using it here in Isaiah chapter 10?

Could he have said, you know what, I'm not going to do it. Let's use Cyrus. Cyrus is prophesied by name.

This is an illustration I've used for years. Let's say, on the morning when

Cyrus is going to proclaim the freedom of the

Jews, that they get to go back to Jerusalem. Remember? Let's say, as he's getting out of bed, he steps on a sharp little toy that one of the little princelings has left on the floor.

That's been happening for thousands of years. Even before, well, in my day, it was tinker toys.

Did you have tinker toys? Oh yeah, the wooden ones. I bet you they're all plastic now. That's what a bummer.

Yeah, yeah. I think they had Legos when I was a kid, but I had tinker toys. Anyway, and he screams, and his foot's cut, and he picks the thing up, and he looks at the bottom of it, and it was made by one of those

Jewish slaves. I'm going to make sure, I'm not going to give that decree today.

I'm not going to let him go. Could that happen? In your universe,

Justin, could that happen? He's a free creature, autonomous. God doesn't have decree.

It could happen. Because that would just be another free creature, the little princeling, who didn't put his toys away, and left the next day's bed.

He gets angry, and so he's not going to let the Jews go. And all those prophecies, fraudulent, not going to happen.

Right? So, how does that work? I don't know how it works from your side.

But I just look at it and go, no, Cyrus is going to do that, and he's going to do it because that's going to be how he wants to act.

That's going to be the desire of his heart. Even if there are desires in his heart that would go against that,

God will restrain them. In other words, if he has more evil in his heart, God will restrain that evil.

How else do you have fulfilled prophecy? How else do you get thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of free creatures to fulfill prophecy?

How do you do that? There are major problems created by both

Christian and atheistic determinism. And there are major problems created by Christian human autonomy over against the freedom of God.

I'll just point out a few of them. First, there are two major casualties when we dispense with free will in the

Calvinist framework. Love and justice. Now, this of course would be news to those of us who have thought deeply on this subject.

Love is only truly love when freely given and freely received. So, we now have the term love.

And I would remind you, Justin, that we are commanded. The first commandment.

Love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. How does that fit into this?

Because see, love's not an emotion. You know that, and I know that. And the greatest commandment to his creatures, love

God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, if that is something that can be commanded, how does it fit into the paradigm that you're saying that, well, if God has created mankind to accomplish his purposes, and if mankind has fallen in Adam so they become the enemies of God, and God must, by his mercy and grace, free them from the chains of bondage into which they have been placed through their relationship to Adam, then

God must be unjust if he doesn't free everyone equally.

That's one form of the argumentation. That, of course, makes grace something that can be demanded, something that's no longer free.

But even at that point, the Scripture says that we love him.

Why? Because he first loved us. The love that a

Christian has is the result of a massive expenditure of divine power to change my heart and my mind.

Are you seriously saying that the unregenerate heart can love

God perfectly? And if it is, in fact, the requirement that we have the work of the

Holy Spirit to renew the heart, to take out—what's the illustration

Scripture uses? Take out a heart of what? Stone. And give a heart of flesh.

That's regeneration. And then to say that it is the nature of the regenerated heart to love, do you have an objection to that?

Do you have an objection that it is the work of the Spirit of God in creating a new creature in Christ Jesus that it is natural for that new heart to love

God, to want to fulfill that command, and it's the natural thing to do?

And if that's true, then it can't be the natural thing of the unregenerate heart to do that, right?

Furthermore, your definition of love, again, starts down here, not up here. It goes this direction rather than this direction.

It's based upon man's categories rather than God's categories.

And I do wonder if the people who make this argument don't realize that this is the same argument that has led almost all the historically

Arminian denominations to move toward universalism. Minimally inclusivism, but especially universalism.

Because it leads to a non -differentiation of types of love. And you may recall a number of years ago when sort of on the fly, short notice, we did that thing where I did it on the

ISDN line out of KPXQ in Phoenix and did the debate with the Forresters on hell.

I'm not sure which side you were on on that, but I'm starting to wonder if you were on the other side of that. Be that as it may. This issue came up then, too.

The nature of love and the fact that God has specific kinds of love just like we do.

We differentiate in our love. I have a different love for my wife than anybody else's wife.

And I'm supposed to. That's a good thing. God has redemptive love for his people.

The love he showed for the people of Israel is not the same love he showed for the

Egyptians. Or for the Assyrians. Or for the Babylonians. I don't know how that can be argued.

The only way that's argued today is for people to say that the Old Testament revelation really is a revelation of God in the first place.

Which then destroys all of prophecy and messianic fulfillments and everything else. God has differentiated love.

He has redemptive love. He has what we would call common grace or the love of maintenance of the creation.

And then he has the inter -Trinitarian love. The love that exists between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. They're all different kinds of love.

And so to just simply throw love out there and say, well, love has to be free but it can be commanded. And love has to be free but you have to be able to change the heart and take...

A heart of stone... Can a heart of stone freely love?

I don't think so. A heart of stone will love itself. A heart of stone will love itself even in expressing love for others.

It'll be a selfish love. Freely given, freely received.

It sounds great but it doesn't fit the parameters. We love him because he first loved us.

There had to be something had to happen there. By this we know to love

God. We go through all of these uses of the term love in scripture and there's all sorts of categories and it's not so simplistic as to say it's only truly love.

It's sort of like it's only truly free. We already saw that's not a meaningful use of that terminology.

Likewise, any meaningful sense of justice is also lost under the deterministic view of God.

Can the person who commits a heinous offense be judged guilty of a crime if they were bound to act in such a way by the divine decree of God?

Answer? Genesis 50, Isaiah 10, Acts 4. Answer? Yes. And until you can refute those texts, you got nothing.

Except philosophical argumentation. But you don't have biblical argumentation. Were Joseph's brothers guilty of sin?

Yes. Did they do what God determined by his decree? Yes. End of subject.

Assyrian king? Guilty of haughtiness of attitude? Yes. Assyrian king did what

God determined him to do to punish people of Israel. Yes. It's right there.

If the Bible is our final authority, if the Bible provides the categories for us to understand these things, there's no way around it.

Same thing with Pontius Pilate, Herod, all sorts of different reasons. Still guilty.

So the answer to that first sentence, can the person who commits a heinous offense be judged guilty of a crime if they were bound to act in such a way by the divine decree of God?

Answer? Yes. Yes, they did what they desired to do.

So maybe your categories of what justice is, because that almost sounds like you're putting it in Western legal form there.

Indeed, it could be argued that God himself is more culpable than they are. Well, again, if you go this way, bring our categories to try to constrain

God, but as a Christian, we've got to bring these categories down here, and that's not going to work.

Equally, how can those God has predestined to hell be considered guilty of rejecting him if they had no option to choose him?

Now, I suppose, given the time, that would be a great place to mark here.

I'm going to mark it and say start here. Because there's a section later on, which is one of the main things

I want to get into, sorting through scriptures. And so 1

Timothy 2 -4 would really, if you want to know where I'm coming from, you might want to pick up the

Potter's Freedom, entire chapter called the Big Three, 1 Timothy 2 -4, 2 Peter 3 -9,

Matthew 23, are all dealt with in that text, but we'll deal with them again because this is a useful conversation to have.

It really, really is. Sorry it went so long.

What we'll do is next week, I've got a short week.

I leave Thursday for St. Charles. We'll be in St. Charles, as we have been for the last 17 years, the first weekend of December.

Then I'm going to be in prior Oklahoma Wednesday through Sunday of the week following.

For those of you in that area, you'll be doing the Five Solos of the Reformation. And by the way, I would assert the

Five Solos don't make much sense outside of the foreign context in which they were birthed. And I'll be making that argument.

Which is why I think they have fallen on hard times amongst the non -reformed because the foundation isn't there to really understand justification by faith the way that the reformers do.

So next week, I'm not exactly sure how things will work out because I'm going to run out and do an apology radio thing like I did a few weeks ago to help hopefully take some of the pressure off of Jeff and the gang.

As you know, Jeff is recovering, but he's still very tired and beat up, literally beat up from what he experienced.

But he's doing better. I talked with him today. Continue to pray for them.

We'll find some time, hopefully, on Monday or Tuesday to get a program in.

Not Monday for you. Tuesday or Wednesday. Tuesday or Wednesday we'll try to get one in before a rather long trip.

We'll try to make it work out from there. That week following, I don't have a lot during the days.

In fact, I have nothing during the days. So we should be able, maybe with some new technology, maybe, to sneak a program in at that point in time too.

We'll see. We'll try. Thank you for listening to the program. Thank you,

Justin, if you've listened to the program. Hopefully, it's been helpful to you. Hopefully, you recognize my love for you.

My respect for you. I consider this an in -house discussion. There are many people who do not. But I also consider it a very, very important discussion and one we've had many times before in other contexts.