Questions from a Non-Calvinist (Part 2)

Hello, welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This is a daily conversation about scripture, culture and media from a Reformed perspective. Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to engage today's topic.

Here's your host, Pastor Keith Foskey.

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist, my name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today is part two of our questions from a non-Calvinist interview. If you did not hear yesterday's program, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it before you begin today's program.

God’s Sovereignty and the Limits of “Because He’s God”

And now, on with the show. But getting back to the question of, I do see a difference between God actively hardening a heart and a person who is behaving according to their nature. And a person who's, you know, Moses and Pharaoh, the distinction was God hardened Pharaoh and he will harden whom he chooses.

And he is God, so he has the right to do that. He can do with the clay what he chooses, and we might think that's unfair, but we can't say it's inaccurate.

So, yeah, and I think, and hear me graciously when I say this, because I have an extremely high view, like I said, of God's sovereignty, excuse me, God's sovereignty. And ultimately, to me, saying, well, he's God and he can do what he wants is the lowest form of apologetics.

And again, to any listener who thinks that I'm being irreverent or whatever, I don't want that to be the thing, but you can answer any question in the Bible related to the Bible with, well, because he's God, he does what he wants.

You know, why did Jesus have to die? Well, we would perhaps talk about substitutionary atonement, we would talk about sin, we would to all those things, but you could just say, well, because he's God, he wanted to do it that way.

To me, that is a very, perhaps that's academically and overall correct, but it is so unsatisfying. It's very much like the story I said at the beginning of the show, which is, why did this loss have to happen to me?

Well, because he's God and he can do what he wants.

Yeah. Well, I'm sympathetic to what you're saying, and I hope that I didn't come across that crassly. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

When someone says that to me, I always dig in and say, nope, that is true, and if that's all God has given us, then it is my job as his creature, as his clay, to accept that. If that's all there is, I'm going to keep digging, because I don't think that's all that's there.

That's my point.

Well, I'll give you a great example, and I have a friend, he's actually recently passed away, actually, and he and I were good friends, and I was very sad of his passing, thankful that he was a believer, but he challenged me a few years ago, and I disagreed almost the same way you just did, because I did a message entitled, If God is Sovereign, Why Do We Evangelize?

You know the heart of that question. Well, if God's already chosen who he's going to save, what does it matter if I go out and hand out tracts or preach on the corner? But I put that title up on Facebook, you know, tonight I'm going to ask this question, If God is Sovereign, Why Do We Evangelize?

And he wrote back, or he wrote on my Facebook page, and again, this was probably 10 years ago, when Facebook first came out, you know, he wrote, God told us to, and that's the only reason we need. Again, correct.

And it is, and in that sense, he's not wrong, but it is, for those who want to go a little deeper and want to try to learn more about the heart of God, it does seem unsatisfying to simply say, he said go, so go.

And to me, it actually diminishes our view of God. So for example, why did Jesus enter Jerusalem on the day of Passover? Well, you and I have a whole rich biblical theology, we can stretch out and say, you know, this festival was this, and it was God bringing these threads together and all that.

If I said, Hey, Keith, why did Jesus enter Jerusalem on Passover? And you just said, because he's God and he can do what he wants. That is so weak. I mean, that just doesn't, and again, to the listener, don't hear me saying that God's sovereignty is weak, or I don't like that doctrine.

But what I'm saying is, that is the bottom level safety net that will always catch you as you're working through the Bible. Anything you can in there, but let's try and climb higher if we can.

Well, I have made the point, and not to disagree wholly, but I do want to say this. When you go through Job, at the end of Job, Job has all these questions and God's answer is pretty much, I made the world, I do what I want.

So there is a sense in which that is the final thing, but there are questions we can ask before we get, like you said, to the safety net. There are questions, and that's what we're doing today. But in the final analysis with Job, it was, you know, were you there when I formed the earth?

Were you there when I, you know, can you put a hook in the nose of Leviathan? No.

It's just, I love Hebrew sarcasm too. I mean, for people that have a natural dislike of sarcasm, just read Job a couple of times. It's amazing. God just is the best. Anyway, have a good heart and remember he's God.

He can do that. So be careful. Exactly.

Yeah. He's God. We're not. So we got to be careful with how we use it. Yeah.

Grace, Regeneration, and the Question of Human Ability

So then moving on to the last one, and we've already sort of talked around it quite a bit, and you drew the difference between having a dead, and I'll call it an Ephesians 2 heart just because I think that's where the richest language comes from, a dead heart versus judicial hardening.

So, and again, I'll say your position back to you, and you can tell me if it's right or wrong. Last question is, has God actively prevented all those who ultimately reject him from turning to him? And so, in the state that we were all created, if God had chosen not to send Christ, if God had chosen not to redeem any of us, he would have been perfectly just to do so.

And I wholly affirm that. If he had saved zero people, he's God and he could have done that. Now again, that's sort of the unsatisfying, seems to reject the character of the psalmist who says that he removes iniquity and all those kinds of things.

But setting that aside, he could have done that. Your position would be that God has shown some measure of grace to all men. He has only shown sufficient grace to particular men, grace sufficient to change a heart, regenerate it, turn one's heart towards God, indwell by the spirit, all of these things in the ordo salutis that we know and love, that God has only chosen particular men for that, whereas the others he has shown some grace, but not all of the grace.

Would that be accurate?

Yes, in the simplest form. In fact, my answer to the question would be, ask the question because I want to give a quick answer. Oh, good.

Those are the best. Put it on a t-shirt. Has God actively prevented, and there's a key choice in the word actively, has God actively prevented all those who ultimately reject him from turning to him?

No.

Okay. Okay. But that's my quick answer, and the key word there is actively, right? We've already talked about our relationship to Adam. We've talked about our natural inability, unwillingness to come, and therefore it is not as if God is actively passing over people who are saying, hey, take me, take me, take me.

It is, God is looking at a kingdom of rebels who have spurned his law, who have damaged his reputation, who have attacked his kingdom, who have raped his bride, and he is saying, and yet I'm still going to be gracious to some of you.

What a concept that our hearts cannot even comprehend.

Exactly. And when we think about the difference between, you know, God, and you already kind of alluded to this, but for the listener who doesn't know this, God could have chosen to save all, and he would have been right in his own self had he made that choice.

I'm going to save all, and we have a universal salvation. He could have chosen to save none, and he would have been perfectly just, but in choosing to save some, this is the only place where he gets to exercise free grace, where he is free to give his grace to and to whom he chooses, and so I think we all, this is the part that's funny when I say God sent his son to save some, because some people say God sent his son to save all, and I say the some is what bothers people, but when you read John 3 .16, you can't come away with any other answer than this.

God so loved the world that he decided to save some, because he says whosoever believes. Now however they get to that point of belief, he's still not choosing to save all. For God so loved the world, he decided to save some.

Whether they got there by their own initiative, or whether they got there by his act of work on their heart to cause them to come, it's still not whether or not God chose to save all or some. It's still some, and so that is the real, because when you get to talking to people about Arminianism, it's the whole, well God wants to save everybody.

There's nowhere in the Bible that indicates that God wants to save everybody. It does tell us he doesn't take, he doesn't get his jollies in the death of the wicked. I know that's a key standard version.

God is not actively enjoying the death of the wicked in the same way that he enjoys showing grace, but he does get glory and justice, and you've probably heard me give the analogy of the king returning from his trip and the kingdom has been destroyed.

You heard me? The analogy there, I think, holds up because he has the choice to destroy everything, but instead he chooses to be gracious to some, and yet the others will be destroyed justly. No one gets injustice.

You either receive mercy or justice. No one receives injustice. Right.

I think the central conflict there is that if Scripture is our God, and Scripture has revealed to us who, let me phrase this very carefully, Scripture has revealed to us things about, has revealed to us particular things about God's nature in the specificity that God desired.

I think there's plenty of things about God's nature that we either can't comprehend or simply not revealed to us, but he gave us what we needed. Yes. Scripture based upon the limited little pinhole of God I can see through Scripture, it seems to me that when you have the, and we're wrapping right back to the first question, when you have this God who throughout the prophets and throughout the Psalms is saying, if you do these things, then I will judge you.

And if you don't do these things, then I will not judge you. If you, the famous Chronicles verse that everyone loves on their bumper sticker, if they'll humble themselves and pray and seek my face, then I'll heal their land.

It would seem to me inconsistent with God's nature for him to say, if you repent and turn, then I will heal your land, while also knowing that he has created those people in such a manner that there is no way for them to do that.

And that gets back to the hyper-Calvinism, the Arminianism and the Calvinism, able but not responsible, that kind of thing. I think that's where my brain breaks down and where humbly I would suggest that I think there's scriptural warrant to say that if God's going to demand something, then there is capability.

And I think that might be the central linchpin issue between the two of us on this.

I think that's the central linchpin issue for the whole thing, is if God has made man responsible, is man able? And I want to challenge you for a thought. I know because of our previous conversations, I know that you are not a Pelagian.

I am not. So you would at least have to grant that if man is somehow able, it is a grace that is given, a universal grace. It would still have to be grace that would make him able? Or do you not agree with that?

No, I think that the anthropology of, I'll call it traditional Arminianism, like Jacob Arminius Arminianism, which I'm not for the listener. By the way, side note, I don't be like, oh, I don't have any labels.

I'm just a Bible guy. I think that's a really annoying position to take. I'm not trying to take that position. I just want to say, don't hold me to five-point Arminianism either. But even the Arminian anthropology recognized that they had the subject of pervenient grace, you know, they called it.

Yeah.

Well, that's what I was going to ask you. I was going to ask, are you affirming then, and I'm not trying to put you in a box. Sure. No, that's fine. But are you affirming, instead of what we would say is electing grace or specific, particular grace, you would say that God has given all men enough grace to overcome their inability?

Because you don't deny inability, Pelagius denied inability. Right.

Pelagius said, if you just grunt and focus and shake your fists enough, then you can just not sin for an entire lifetime, which is an astounding thing to say in light of Scripture.

But do you remember what it was that caused Pelagius to even become who he was? It was a response to Augustine's prayer. Augustine's prayer was, God, command what thou will, and give us the grace to do what thou commands.

So I think Augustine, again, was meeting this issue, the same issue that we've arrived at today, was meeting this issue with the same tension but balance that the Scripture requires. God, command what you will, but give us the grace to do it, because apart from that grace, we can't.

Correct. And Pelagius said, and I'm not characterizing you, or caricaturing you, but he basically said similar to what you're arguing, is, well, if he's commanded it, then I must have the ability to do it.

And that's the argument that Pelagius was making. Well, if God's commanded it, I don't have to pray for grace. I already have the ability. I don't think that's my position. No, I know. And that's what I'm saying, I don't want to caricature, but that's what is the real issue.

If God has commanded it, we must be able to. And I think the answer is not necessarily, because implicit within the command of God is the reliance upon Him. Yes. Yeah. Implicit within it is, to do this, you're going to have to trust me.

I affirm that. I think Scripture is utterly clear that humans are not morally neutral. This idea that you can choose to go evil, you can choose to go good, and it's all up to you, I think is counter-biblical, it's New Age nonsense.

Well, New Age nonsense has been around for a very long time. But regardless, and I don't want to proof text, and I don't want to pick apart the specific, you know, whatever, but on a first blush, and again, I am 26, and I'm still, I've been a student of Scripture for a while, but I would not at all say that I have some sort of exhaustive knowledge.

But on first blush, I read a verse like Titus 2 .11 through 13, which has this, by the way, like Titus 2 .13, know that if you deal with your Jehovah's Witnesses. One of those grammatically tight verses that identifies Jesus Christ as God himself.

So anyway, but you have Titus 2 .11, bringing salvation, he says he comes bringing salvation to all people. There's an error, I think you could read a universalist perspective in that, which I'm not. I'm not affirming that.

You could, I think the Reformed understanding of that would be all people referring to all types of people, as in not specific to the Jews, not specific to this ethnic group, but to all people in any kind of situation, I guess.

Whereas I would kind of look at that and say that the free offer is there for all people, and I don't think you would disagree, but your difference would be, yes, it is offered to all people, but the hearts of men being what they are means they will never accept it without an additional step of God performing regeneration and supernatural grace upon their heart.

Would that be accurate?

Yeah. I need to go back and look at the passage in Titus 2, because I will grant, though, that all in my times of studying POS, very rarely means all men without exception.

Yeah. Every human being that has ever existed ever. Yeah. Exactly.

You've heard Dr. White, I'm sure, use this analogy, but when somebody says, well, Jesus died for all, did he die for the Amorite high priest who would never be saved, who lived a thousand years before him, is that one that he died for?

And they would say, well, yes, he died for him. To what end? Right. What's the purpose, right? And I've said this, and I know I'm going off on a tangent. I think this is going to end up being a two-parter.

I think I'm going to cut it in half, because we're having a great conversation.

We're getting into particular redemption, limited atonement, or... Yeah.

I think I could affirm limited atonement even if I was an Arminian, because limited atonement simply says that Christ died for those who will believe, in its simplest state. Why would we argue for the application of the blood of Christ to those who will never receive the benefit of it?

Why is that the big deal? Why is that the hill that everybody dies on? This doesn't seem to me like it's the big deal. The big deal is to me whether or not God, like what you said, God gives the ability of all men to take of that ability or take of that atonement, but not the fact of what the atonement does.

And so that just gets back to the word all, and you've heard these arguments, I'm sure, but when the Bible says all... To hear every statement, yeah. Well, the Bible says all Judea went out and were baptized by John.

Well, no. Yeah. Every breathing human being. Exactly. And we know that's not... That means all without distinction, not all without exception.

Yeah. Pray for all men.

Yeah. And I definitely think that's the 1 Timothy 2 understanding. He says pray for all men, those of kings and high positions. He's talking about types of men there. And the love of money is the root of all evil.

Well, it's all kinds. And even modern translations have added all kinds of evil, because they understand that Pastor there is referring to various kinds of men. But I don't have a problem with saying that in one sense, Christ does bring salvation to light for all men, and that he's the only way that any man will ever be saved.

There is no other name by which men can be saved. Amen.

And he is the only hope for all the world. Therefore, we take this hope of Christ to all men. And I'm sure you've heard me say this maybe before, but one of the confidences I have as a Calvinist is that when I take this gospel to all men, that there will be those who respond positively because God has his elect in every tribe and nation.

I think the danger of the extreme of your position is the missionary coldness that you were talking about earlier, is this idea that, well, God's going to save them, so what's the point of missions? That's the danger of the extreme of your position.

I think the danger of the extreme of, I don't know, I'll call it my position, is an acute anxiety that if I spend five seconds on the couch, then that's someone who went to hell because I didn't get up off the couch right away.

And so I recognize that there's danger on both ends of that.

And I will say this, I don't think that the, and I don't want to call it your position because I'm slowly dragging you to our side, so I'm slowly pulling you over.

All of my friends basically that I taught deep theology with, with the exception of one, and he knows who he is because we spoke about this last night, all of them are Calvinist or at least heavily tilt that way.

And so they do the, you're not there yet kind of thing, and I'm just, you know, that's fine with me. We'll just see where scripture takes us, right?

Well, yeah, absolutely. And what I was going to say, the position of the, whether you call it traditionalist, Arminian or whatever, the problem with evangelism on that side is if we say, well, Calvinism has hurt evangelism because it makes us cold as missionaries.

And I agree that that can happen. The problem on the other side is not just that you get anxious, but it hasn't really, it hasn't created this windfall of missionaries. You don't see on the Arminian side, everybody over there standing on the street corner preaching.

In fact, the people you see on the people standing on the street corner preaching are usually Calvinists. Yes. Irritating ones at that. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. No, no. Hey, I understand. I've done some, I've done some street corner preaching, but my usual words, huh?

There's good and bad ways to do it, is all I'm saying.

I usually start by saying, I'm not like you're what you're used to. I'm here because I love you and I want to share a message with you, but whatever. But I, you know, what have we seen as a result of those who think that salvation is purely up to the choice?

We've seen manipulative tactics. We've seen the mass crusade mentality where we want to get as many people as we can to raise hand, come forward and not expect any life change. One of the things that I'm thankful for in Calvinism is that when we believe someone gets saved, we believe that their life has changed.

Now I know that that's not to say the other side doesn't believe that, but if you don't feel like you have to manipulate a yes out of someone, if you don't feel like you have to manipulate a heart change, it does make the understanding and process of how a person gets saved a little clearer rather than, well, he raised his hand when he was eight and he believed in Jesus, therefore he's saved, even though he's living like the devil and doesn't matter.

And again, I know that's a bad caricature. Everybody accidentally caricatures.

Well, and part of the point of this is putting up t-ball questions for the other person so they can just crush them. So like I make a bad, unknowingly bad summary of your position and you're like, here's why that's not the case.

And you know, you get to correct them. So that's kind of the point of what we're doing. I'll give you a point on that, just on the limited atonement piece, particular redemption, whatever phrasing we want to use for it.

Hebrews, the Wilderness Generation, and Perseverance

So we were just in Hebrews last night at the small group. This is a perfect rubber meets road instance. And so we're in Hebrews three, and in Hebrews three, you have this, this callback to the Exodus narrative where the writer of the Hebrews, which I'll put my cards on the table.

I think it was probably Paul, but we don't have to, whatever, good case for Luke as well. But in Hebrews chapter three, you have this warning not to harden your hearts that God, you know, will deal with you if you go astray, the dangers of unbelief.

And it's the common refrain of the writer of the Hebrews. Here's a glorious truth about how Christ is better. Here's the danger if you don't accept this and you fall away. You know, that's sort of the pairing.

But in verse 16 through 19, for who provoked him when they had heard, indeed did not all those who came out of Egypt led, indeed did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses. And with whom was he angry with for 40 years?

Was it not those who sinned whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? And who did he swear that they would not enter the rest, but to those who were disobedient. And so we see they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

The amazing thing about this, I think, and again, I don't, we could spend an hour on this alone, but the amazing thing about this is that these are presented as people who had faith that presumably during the Exodus narrative, they had been in their homes and presumably at Passover, even though it would have been just the firstborn, they were probably putting blood on their doorposts and they were walking through the Red Sea and we had the Prince of Egypt walls of water on either side.

You know, they had seen God on top of the mountain and thunder and they had seen the Ten Commandments and miracle bread and all that, and it wasn't enough. And, you know, that's a that's a tough passage because I think what the writer is trying to say is if even that level of God's revelation can cause you to follow or can can be insufficient to convince you, take care because you need to, you need to stay the course.

Yeah, absolutely. And Hebrews, of course,.

Sorry, so your position would be those people were never truly regenerated. They did all of those things. They did the, they painted the blood, maybe. I don't know. Again, it could be the firstborn was taken and then they just walked out anyway, but they painted the blood.

They walked through the Red Sea. They they when Moses said do this and it says all the people said we will do as is commanded. They make the covenant there in Exodus 19 and then they go through the wilderness and they are left there to die, it says, because of their unbelief.

Would it be your position that they never truly believed and and that God's God was not sufficient? I'll say God wasn't sufficiently working in their hearts to bring them all the way to the promised land.

I think that the the question of the regenerative nature of the of those in the wilderness is a difficult one. We know this. We know that at least one person had a regenerate heart and yet did not make in the promised land.

That's Moses. Yeah, I agree. So to us, so to say that everyone who didn't make it into the promised land did so because they were unregenerate, I think is being somewhat presumptuous. That's right. And because Moses would be in that category.

And as the questions we're throwing around here, this is so I can hear your answer. This isn't like, ha, gotcha.

No, no, no. No, no. And when I say presumptuous, I didn't mean to assume that you're being presumptuous. I think that I think that it's a difficult question. We have a generation going in and a generation coming out.

The generation going in dies as a whole. But I don't but I don't know that as a whole, the entire generation was unbelieving. I think the entire generation suffered for the unbelieving first, the unbelieving spies and their response to the unbelieving spies.

Yeah, that's right. You got Joshua and Caleb were the only two who believed. Of course, they make it into the promised land. They're the only ones of that generation who do. So I think that there's a larger narrative and we have to we have to step back.

I just had this question earlier in the week on the program.

Do we believe it's 12 hours old for me? So I literally have not had time to fully think on it. Yeah, this is this is interesting. Yeah. Getting it raw, as it were.

So looking back at the question, I believe I do believe regeneration is necessary for anyone to believe because I believe regeneration precedes faith. Therefore, anybody in the Old Testament would have been regenerate.

I believe Noah was regenerate. I believe Enoch was regenerate. You know, I think that this is an active work of God whereby a person is able to believe. Therefore, anyone in the wilderness who was a believer was regenerate.

Now, the question, though, is can a person go through the actions of a belief without genuinely believing? And the answer is yes. And the Hebrews tells us that. Hebrews 6, of course, a person can taste the heavenly gift, do all these things.

And yet I would say that falling away is a demonstration that they were not truly saved. So I do I do. I do take that position with Hebrews 6.

We're just hitting all the titles of the tulip, aren't we? So, yeah, yeah. We're now we're now at the P.

That's right. So definitely going to be a two parter because we're going to separate this into its own thing. But getting to the nuts and bolts of who in the wilderness was saved, I don't know. The answer to that question is I don't know.

But I do know that if they were genuinely operating in faith, it was an act of God. At least I would say that if they were genuinely operating in faith, it was it was an act of God in their heart. And I do believe there are some people who painted their doorposts who may not have believed it, but their neighbor believed it.

And they did because their neighbor was doing it. And they benefited from their neighbor's faith in the same way that somebody sitting in the church benefits from the faith of the people around them. Just like the Bible, you know, Hebrews 6, you know, they're tasting the heavenly gift.

They're they're fellowshipping with the saints. They're doing they're benefiting from that fellowship, even though they themselves are not saved. So so that would be my 50 cent.

Definitions, Labels, and the Value of Charitable Dialogue

I can argue with you when we get to Hebrews 6. No, I'm kidding. Yeah.

You have about a chapter a week. And so, yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll have you back in three weeks.

There you go. Yeah. No, I think if you wanted to start wrapping things up a little bit, I think that this has been extremely valuable because I, in a sense, there is actually a little bit of a freedom about not having a rigidly defined position.

And I don't some things I do. And we talked a little bit about this in pre show. One of the most valuable things that I've lessons I ever got was the difference between a definitional doctrine, meaning deity of Christ, the resurrection, justification by faith, that if you don't believe that, then you're in a different religion.

Then you go out a layer from that, and I would put some critical doctrines there as well, maybe some church organization governance things. And then outside of that, it's music styles and all that kind of stuff that is really not all that relevant.

I'm not not all that relevant, but people who hold different beliefs on that will be around the throne at the end of all time. And that's a that's a good, comforting thing. So anyway, what I was getting to is I think it's very valuable to be able to dialogue and to kick this stuff around without having to say this is how it is.

And if you don't believe and you just don't understand your Bible. And so I appreciate you having me on to do that. And I appreciate people that are able to work in that space and to not feel, and if that's my encouragement to the listener, is to not feel like you have everything figured out, but always be striving to be biblical.

That's really the thing.

Amen, amen. And what you said just reminded me of something that I want to close with this. Years and years and years ago, I took a group of young people similar to you. I was around your age. I was kind of doing, well, how old are you?

26. Well, when I was a few years younger than you, I was working with youth and I took about 40 doctrines of scripture and we had a list and everybody got the list. We were at youth camp. And I said, here are these doctrines.

I want us to list which ones we think are essential for a person to go to heaven and which ones are not essential for a person to go to heaven. That must have been fun. And it really was enlightening because things like, of course, the deity of Christ and things like the justification by faith, we all sort of agreed.

But when it started getting to the question of things like baptism, it started getting to the question of things like, I don't even know if we mentioned predestination at that point, but when we got down to it, there were lesser things that we all conceded were necessary.

And when it comes to the doctrine of predestination, I have some friends who would say, well, if you don't hold to the Calvinist view of predestination, you're not saved. I don't, I don't, I don't believe that.

I've been hurt by people who have said that. And again, back to wrapping back around, I do not want to misrepresent and say, well, that's just all Calvinists. They all do that. No, they don't. You and I have talked for now an hour and a half and we haven't done that.

Absolutely. And as a person who identifies myself as a Calvinist, I do sort of pigeonhole myself, but I sort of, I welcome the banter, as you know, and I sort of, I paint a little, I paint a little target on myself so as to encourage conversation.

If you know going in, I say I'm a Calvinist, then you're going to hold me to account for all the things, the dumb things that Calvinists do, but for all the things that we say we believe. And I've sort of, you know, years ago, I was sort of afraid to use that moniker.