Talkin' Calvinism with Leighton Flowers

Infant Damnation, Misrepresentation, and the Character of God

Hey guys, it's Keith and I'm at the Y-Calvinism Conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee and I am in the Lion's Den. I am sitting across, you won't believe who's right across from me, it is Leighton Flowers.

We went to dinner last night, it was amazing. No, I'm glad that you're here, I really am, and I know that may sound...

I've had a lot of fun, I've had a great time.

Yeah, and you're here just to kind of explain, because you're not becoming a Calvinist I don't think, at least not yet.

No, the debate's tomorrow with Jason Brita and he's a friend and so I wanted to come in early. I went ahead and purchased the full ticket because if I was going to come down here I might as well meet up with Andrew, yourself, other friends and learn a little bit.

You were hoping to see Tom Buck but unfortunately he wasn't able to come.

Yeah, Tom Buck is a friend and so, believe it or not, I actually like hanging out with Calvinists. It's usually a lot of fun for me because they challenge me to think. Calvinists tend to be pretty deep thinkers and have a lot of strong opinions and certainly me, I kind of like people with strong opinions on theology and who push me to think deeper.

I always like to be cordial about it and loving about it, as I think I see witnessed in your life and Andrew is the same way. Tom Buck has been that way with me every time we've been together and that's not always the case with online interactions, unfortunately, and so I've enjoyed my time.

Y 'all have been awesome and Andrew keeps buying my meal even though I keep trying to buy it and so I'm being spoiled.

Well, I'm thankful that you feel welcome and at some point I want to come to something that you do, if nothing else, just to set up a table like this and have these kind of make my way into your lines then, if you will.

Absolutely. You're always welcome. So, we just finished the Q &A session. This is day two of the conference. I preached yesterday so I didn't have to preach today, which was nice because I got to focus on just listening and doing some podcasts.

You look nice, by the way. Dr. White gave me this. Is that the one that he wore today? No, he brought it to me and put it on me on video. There's a video of him teaching me to put it on. So this was a gift and the thing is, Dr. White and I met 20 years ago and so he's known me a lot longer than most people just because I followed his ministry, done a lot of things.

Just very thankful for what he's been in my life. So he means a lot to me as an individual, not just as a theologian. And so it was funny. He brought me this and put it on and everything. But obviously the Q &A session, I really thought you had put a question in there.

I did not. I didn't even know.

I thought it was just going to be open mic kind of a situation. I don't know that I would even got up because of that, just because of the nature of this particular conference. It was submit your questions.

And honestly, I didn't even know that was available. So I never submitted a question. But some of the questions were questions I could have and would have submitted possibly. So they weren't necessarily bad questions.

There were some good questions.

Infants, Miscarriage, and Whether Calvinists Believe Babies Go to Hell

Yeah, I thought so too. I want to kind of talk about a few of them. But I do want to say this. A few times you've been referenced from the dais. And I did it jokingly earlier. And I want to say, I hope you aren't embarrassed or feel like anyone's calling you out.

No one's there.

I just like highlight. Even the mentions a couple of times by Dr. White today were all in good fun. Maybe with the exception of the infant damnation context, because that's such a heavy topic. And that one was a little bit tense, I guess, because of the tenseness of that particular.

Subject. Well, since you bring that up, I intentionally stayed out of that online. It was an online interaction. I've lost three children to miscarriage in the last five years, my wife and I. And one of them happened during COVID.

So she had to go into the hospital by herself. I wasn't with her. And I've told this story before. It was a very difficult time. So there are certain things that I somewhat get, not emotionally in the sense that I can't control my emotions, but it's, I don't want to engage emotionally and not be able to be logical on something like that.

So I'm somewhat hard to deal with that. But when I saw it online, I did see it as like, I was like, guys, please back up. Please stop. This can get ugly. And I think the issue from, if you want to say my side, from the Calvinist view, it did sound very accusatory, like we don't love our kids.

And it was inflamed. The way it was clipped out was inflammatory. And purposefully so. It was clickbait. I mean, and even Jordan admitted that, you know, that he wanted to get people interacting. Is this the idol killer?

Is that the guy that did it? No, Loren McGrew is the guy that made the statement. Okay. And I don't know him. I've only seen him. His intention was not to say what people were accusing him of saying. He clarified his intentions afterwards.

Remember, it's like a three or four hour conversation. And it was in the context of me talking about how, you know, on Calvinism, you have to be okay with worshiping a God you could believe doesn't love your child or doesn't elect your child and how difficult that would be.

And I was admitting, I don't know that I could do that. I don't know that I could continue to choose to worship a God that I believe would do that to my child. And so I was, which is a hard, difficult topic.

And I get that. And I know even sitting across from somebody who believes differently than me, even bringing that up as a heavy topic. So most of the time you would avoid those kinds of things because they're so heavy.

But when you're having a conversation with other provisionists, other non-Calvinists, these are the kinds of things we grapple with in a public sphere that are hard. And we admit that. But it's not like they're not discussed and brought up by the scholars on both sides.

There's quotes from Piper and others about the, you know, loss of infants and all kinds of other issues. In other words, theologians answer and talk about hard doctrines. And this is one of those. And in that context, Warren was making a comparison with a mindset.

And this is the important word is the mindset. The mindset of pagan worshipers who are willing to worship a deity that would take their own child as a sacrifice. And it's the same mindset that's willing to worship that deity that would be willing to worship a deity that would damn their infant.

And the fact is most Calvinists don't believe, at least the most mainstream Calvinists that I'm aware of, don't believe that God damns infants to hell. And that was stated not only in the context of that conversation, but by Warren and others in other conversations playing John MacArthur actually defending the fact that God saves all infants.

And so taken out of context and played in the way it was. And plus, my little section was clipped out right after Warren's comment. I said, well, any good parent is obviously going to love their child.

I said, that was my very first words, and then it clipped to the next section. And where I said, I can't imagine, you know, believing in reprobation and thinking, you know, that my God might do that to one of my children.

I can't even fathom. That's incomprehensible to me. Inconceivable was a word that James White had used back in 1987 describing that. He says it's inconceivable that God would punish an innocent infant.

He's changed his view since then toward the view he represented in the talk back just now. And... I think he would argue that he hasn't. I don't know. No, no, he has. Did he admit? Yeah, he admitted that he changed it since the 1987.

Since the 87.

Okay, okay. I just want to make sure he's represented. And I'm not saying you would intentionally misrepresent him.

And he's even in his own broadcast mentioned that the 87 view was more after he had just left the IFB and that he kind of still held to more of that perspective. Again, I won't put words in his mouth and go listen to him talk about it.

But there was some lack of clarity on some of that because one of the Twitter followers that's close to White actually tried to make it sound like he hasn't changed his view since 1987. Yeah. And that he actually still holds to the same view that MacArthur holds to.

Which I was actually trying to say, no, I think you're wrong on that. That he actually holds to the view that he just represented there, that God has the right to elect infants just like the adults. And we don't, you know, we trust God to do what's right.

And that's more of his position. And there is one clip where he does say, you know, God elects some infants and some infants he doesn't. And that to me is a very troubling doctrine. I really, I really strongly oppose that doctrine because I really do believe the Bible is abundantly clear about God's feelings towards infants and children.

And I think there are way too many passages, I think at least as many passages that support such strong doctrines as the doctrine of the Trinity and other things to show us and to tell us what God will do for those infants or imbeciles as they're referred to, you know, mentally incompetent, something like that.

We believe that they will be saved. And I think MacArthur uses a lot of those same scriptures when he makes a case for this. Spruill, I mean, excuse me, Piper uses a lot of the same verses. And so, and I'm not talking about one or two verses like Andrew mentioned, you know, the David passage.

But there are literally dozens of passages that are referenced in defense of the fact that God does not damn infants, that it's not the reason. It's really, to me, it's baffling that White says we can't know that.

It seems to me a lot stronger in Scripture, even from many reformers, Christian reformers. And I was surprised nobody on the stage took that position. I thought Michael would probably take that position.

Is it Michael or Nathan? Michael Schultz. Michael Schultz, yeah. I thought Michael Schultz would step in and take that position because I just assumed, based upon some of the things that I've heard him say, that he would take that position.

But I understand if you just kind of let it go because you don't want to get into a controversy on a stage, or if he holds to that position, I don't know.

Fairness, the Unevangelized, and Libertarian Freedom

I think there are a lot of difficulties here. And if you would allow for a little bit of, not necessarily pushback, just thoughts, right, on this issue. Of course. Because one of the first things that sort of was a controversy at my church when I was preaching Calvinism or whatever, was that I believe babies go to hell.

And I've never preached that. And it was not something that I'd ever said, but it was a generic attack against Calvinism that all Calvinists believe babies go to hell. And you have affirmed already, but I'm going to ask you again to simply say, you know that not all Calvinists believe.

I know that for a fact. As a matter of fact, I've celebrated that fact. Okay. And I know many times online and played videos of, I mean, John MacArthur's, he even says.

They're innocent, for goodness sake. Well, the book Safe in the Arms of Jesus is the name of the book. And that's what I showed to the person. I said, John MacArthur's a Calvinist and here's a book he wrote.

You can't accuse me of believing something because that's what you think the monolithic position is. That's not the monolithic position. However, on the other side, I struggle with this and not even from a position of necessarily predestination and election, more so on the issue of like, in the Lutheran, as you know, I've been studying Lutheranism recently because I want to understand it better, not because I want to become a Lutheran, hashtag your Lutheran, no, not because of that, but because I really do.

I respect a lot of people. Dr. Jordan B. Cooper has become just a guy I really respect. I think a lot of him as a person, I think he's a good teacher. And so I want to know why he believes what he believes.

You know, I'm interested in that. And I know there are beliefs that like God, like in baptism, such as some believe in infant baptism, there's the imparting of faith. Because they would say justification is by faith alone, therefore if a baby is saved, it's because they have faith, therefore there has to be this impartation of faith.

And if I'm misrepresenting anybody's position, I'm not trying to, I'm saying I've heard that been said. So there has been in the historic church, this debate, and it's, so I don't, as fair as I want to be in saying I agree with you, there's a lot of passages that I think we could point to.

Jesus said, let the little children come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Obviously these passages have to mean something, right, in regard to this issue. I do think this is, it's fair to say that godly men have wrestled with this, because in the flood, there were babies in the flood, there were babies in Sodom, we assume, I mean we talk, maybe there were homosexuals and there weren't any babies at that point, but in general we would say that there have been instances such as in the Psalms where it talks about dashing the head of the child against a rock.

This is a terrible thing to have to talk about, but we do have to address the fact that there have been instances where it seems as if that God's wrath has fallen upon all, including.

Children. Well the ending of a temporary life is of course quite a bit significantly different than an eternal suffering in hell, and that gets to the other question of what does that look like, and so when you're talking about infant damnation or even questioning whether or not God would save an infant who perishes or an aborted baby, and Dr. White, pretty clear that he does not hold to the view that MacArthur holds to, that all aborted babies go to heaven, because he even says, because that would make abortion the greatest heaven-filling device that there is, and my thought, and that's exactly what MacArthur actually argues is a reason to believe in infant salvation of all aborted babies, is that that's one of the ways in his sovereignty he's filling heaven with people of all tribes and nations and tongues is through the death of infants who are aborted or the death of infants who die because of mortality rates, you know, in far-off countries, and so the very...

It's interesting, I don't want to interrupt you, but Spurgeon has a similar quote where he talks about the fact that heaven is going to have so many people is because of the untold number of children who have died who are in heaven, and so that was Spurgeon's position, was because think about how, and our generation is really the first, maybe the two or three generations past is the first that hasn't seen a significantly high mortality rate among children.

Right, exactly.

Which, to me, I mean, again, I disagree with Calvinism, but that form of Calvinism seems far less offensive, at least in my eyes, and it doesn't bring near as much question on the character and goodness of God.

If, heaven forbid, MacArthur and Piper, as influential as they are, were taking a position that God might or might not save infants, I think that's so devastating to the church to even paint that kind of a picture of God.

To me, it's just, it is an inconceivable concept to me, and so that's why I think I'm so passionate about just defending what I believe is the character of God with regard to what He would do for an infant that was aborted or an infant that died.

I think MacArthur's right, I think Piper's right, I think the dozens upon dozens of verses clearly demonstrate that God would show mercy and grace to infants that perish.

May I, again, and trust me, I'm not trying to argue a terrible thing. You can, absolutely. But no, no, no, I'm not trying to, because I don't want anyone to assume I'm arguing for infants going to hell, that's not my point.

But you just used a phrase, and again, if you lisped and you didn't mean to say it, I don't want to simply, I gotcha, I'm not that guy, but you said God extends mercy. If they're innocent, why do they need mercy?

Well, because they're still born outside the garden, and so they're still under the corruption of the world. The analogy that I know Dr. Adam Harwood has used, as a matter of fact, it's Millard Erickson, Zwingli, Dr. White mentioned Zwingli, which is a view of the corruption of the heart where, I was getting a distraction because somebody was messaging me from behind you there, but where, for example, an example of it would be like a baby that's born addicted to crack cocaine.

They're called crack babies in the ER. The baby is obviously greatly affected by the sins of her addicted mother, but the baby's not guilty for what the mother has done, the baby's just affected by what the mother's done.

In the same way, a child that's born outside the garden under the curse of sin is greatly affected and impacted under the corruption where they are certainly going to grow up and sin because of their nature, their desires, and the corrupt fallen world that they grow up in.

But that doesn't mean that you have to hold to this concept of inherited guilt, that we are born guilty for the sins of our parents. I think there's passages out of Ezekiel, I don't have all in front of me, passages out of Ezekiel that were not held guilty for the sins of our parents, and other passages that seem to indicate, to me at least, and to Zwingli and even other reformers, Miller-Larsen and others, that don't necessarily teach the doctrine of inherited guilt.

Now that's where I, with Dr. White's view that abortion would be the greatest heaven-filling device, well, what's the alternative? That abortion's the greatest filling of hell device? I mean, you see what I'm saying?

Or maybe half heaven and half hell, or 60 heaven and 40 hell, or 10 I mean, what's the, it just seems to me, I don't understand why a Calvinist would even take that option when there's such a overwhelming mainstream Calvinistic defense of infant salvation.

The only reason that I can fathom, I can't psychologize James White or others that hold to that view, but the only reason I can think of that they would hold to that is that it's the only thing they see as truly consistent with their doctrine of inherited guilt, and I think that's just a huge sacrifice to make, to uphold that doctrine, and again, that's my argument, and I understand that a person wants to be consistent with the claims of their system, but if that is at the sacrifice of the character of God, I just think, just walks, treads so lightly, brothers, that you would in any way insinuate something so horrendous and inconceivable as that our God would damn an aborted baby to an eternal hell.

That's just, I mean, I can't, we can move on to another topic.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think it may be time to...

I may get more emotional the more I think about it, because it is such a hard...

Yeah, and that wasn't my intention to, this is a difficult...

When we sat down, just so the listeners know, when we came out of the question and answer, Keith is very kind, he was asking me, are there some of the questions you would, and I mentioned the question about infant damnation, because it was brought up, and so Keith's not bringing that up to be contentious with you whatsoever.

No, yeah, I'm not shock jock, I'm not Howard Stern of Calvinism.

You're much too gracious, if anything.

Well, and I hope that people aren't hearing my pushback as, you know, as this is necessarily a position that I take or anything. I'm simply saying, here are the things, here are the issues, and I do think that this is an issue that has, in some way, been debated within the church, because of the questions of how much sin is inherited, how much guilt is inherited.

As you said, if the need for grace and mercy is there, then there still has to be an act of salvation on God's part of some sense, in some way, when a child dies. Well, we can say from death.

I mean, you know, death occurs of the fall. And so every baby is going to eventually die, whether they die as infants or 80-year-olds are going to die, but so they're being saved from that as well. And so salvation is not just about salvation from hell, you know, there's salvation from other things.

And so we do believe that babies need God's grace, they need salvation. We just don't maybe believe that they need to be saved from the guilt of what Adam did, and there'd be a difference with that. But again, that's not just provisionists or Arminians.

Even within the reformed ranks, there are some who've held to that view, like Zwingli and Millard Erickson and others, just to name a few.

Fairness, the Unevangelized, and Libertarian Freedom

So when we talk about fairness, and I am going to try to move on, I just think, because the other question I thought we might could banter about for a bit, and there may be people waiting on us.

No, it's fine. He said he texted me, so I'll catch up with him. Okay. Was that Jason? Is he here? No, no, no. That was Brendan.

Oh, okay. The guy that makes the pipes. Oh, nice. Nice. Okay. Well, you heard my answer. You heard the answers to the question of fairness, and that's the question I really thought you had asked, and I had really tried to answer it in a way, not necessarily to satisfy you, because that's not my job, but to answer it in such a way that I thought I was trying to be fair to the question.

I've always tried to literally listen and say, okay, this is what they're really asking, and this is what I want to dig down into.

I can sense that, the way you answer, and there's something really important for your listeners to know this, is that how would you answer the question if your 15 or 16-year-old son or daughter came to you with this question?

You would obviously answer with a spirit of humility and love and graciousness, and you would attempt to explain it to them and bring them along. You wouldn't yell them down or say the worst. And none of the guys did that.

I'm not saying any of that. No, no, no. None of them did. We had some fun up there, but it wasn't any of that, yeah, for sure. But I know when it comes to the issue of fairness, I think that what I said is true, and I would like to hear your thought when I say that there's a sense in which there isn't really any unilateral fairness in the world, because even being born in America, there is a sense.

Life's not fair, generally, yeah.

And, you know, a while back, you and I were in a Twitter back and forth with a guy who was arguing about whether or not somebody who never hears the gospel, if they can still be saved. And that's not

I want to go there right now, because I know we may disagree on some of that. But the issue, though, was the issue of, okay, what if a guy only hears it once, right, versus a person who's literally drugged to church every day of their life for 18 years?

And so is there not a sense in which that is unfair? If we're simply trying to say God's not fair, and the atheist says that, right, well, you know, if God was all-powerful, he'd be all good, and if he's not all good, he's not all you know, you've heard that argument, you're an evangelist, so you've heard all those apologetic arguments, you know, so, you know, and I guess just your thoughts.

Well, there's been many books and papers and articles and broadcasts produced answering those kinds of questions from both perspectives. With regard to the un-evangelized, and the quote-unquote justice or fairness of God, he does not show partiality, and all the emphasis with Romans 1, especially that no one has an excuse because he's made himself abundantly clear through revelation, a conscience that we all have.

I know William Lane Craig, from a Molinist perspective, argues that God makes himself sufficiently known to anybody he knows would respond positively, so there's a philosophical way. He admits, I think, I won't put words in his mouth, he can speak for himself, obviously, very well, but I think he talks about actualizing a world in which anyone who would respond positively has the opportunity to respond positively because God knows all possible worlds or all possible ways in which somebody would respond.

Again, philosophical reasons. I know you're not necessarily defending that, but doesn't that, just you and I talking, nobody's listening except for a couple thousand people, but you and I talking, doesn't that just take a step back, though, to the idea of, isn't Molinism just another form of determinism?

Because God is still determining to make this world where that happens. Right.

It's a deterministic framework, but with the caveat of allowing for libertarian freedom. So God knows what someone will libertarianly, freely do. He is not determining what they will do. And so, and choosing, and the big philosophical question, and some Molinists take different views on whether God is actively choosing to actualize a particular world at some point in time, whatever that means, depending upon your theory of time, and this is when it gets into...

Roll the dice. Yes. Deal the cards. We've got two non-philosophical, philosophically trained, I'm assuming you're not a philosopher. You're not a philosopher.

I would like to think I'm a... I'm not either. I'm a theologian. I'm a philosopher. I'd like to think I'm a pastor and an exegete. Yes, exactly.

At least that would be my... So we are both diving into philosophical waters, and whether it's the Molinist or the determinist, even the dynamic guys, open theist, even C .S. Lewis kind of takes more of the God's outside of time approach, kind of a Boethian, you know, form of the view.

And so... One second. Do we need to leave, brother, if you're... You're getting... You can finish up. Okay, just give me a few more minutes. I just don't want to... I don't want to hold you up. No, you're good.

You guys are good. Thank you. So, in other words, what I'm trying to present is that there are a number of different ways to answer a philosophical question. I don't hold to, obviously, determinism in the fact that ultimately God's the one who's deciding what we will decide, because I think that would be demonstrably unfair.

For God to decide what you will decide and then hold you accountable for what you decide, I do believe that's markedly unfair. In other words, I don't believe that it's fair for God to ultimately be the ultimate cause of your decision and then hold you accountable for your decisions, which is one of the reasons I defend my view of libertarian freedom with regard to the choices of man, the morally accountable choices of man.

I'm not saying every single choice is necessarily a libertarianly free choice, but it's... When I say libertarian freedom, for those that may be listening, it's source freedom. In other words, that you are ultimately responsible for your choice, meaning that the source of the choice, the source of the desire is within your control, not something God determines.

Because on compatibilism, God determines your nature, which will ultimately decide your choice. So you're doing what you're doing freely, and therefore it's considered... You're considered responsible and accountable on compatibilism.

I just don't think that's a sufficient basis on which to hold somebody accountable if they're ultimately not able to control their nature to the degree that they can make a libertarianly free choice one way or the other with regard to the gospel and those kinds of things.

Your thoughts on the... You didn't get to hear my presentation. I didn't. Sorry about that. That's a shame on you. It's some travel situations. I was actually aiming to be here, but...

I mentioned that the Lutheran perspective, again, not hashtag your Lutheran, but the Lutheran perspective of man is free in everything that is beneath him, but not free in those things which are above him.

That is a phrase that they use, and I'm sympathetic to that. I understand what they're saying. I think in a way, Edwards sort of tried to make that same argument with his understanding of the freedom of the will, that man has a free will to do those things that he desires to do.

The problem is the things that are above him are beyond his desires, right? That would be my understanding of Edwards, at least in regard to his trying to express that man does make legitimate choices, and those choices are free choices, in the sense that he's free to do what he wants to do.

The problem is his want. His want is... His wanter's broken. Yeah. Skrull talks about that. His wanter's born broken. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I said this in a sermon recently. I said, God gave me a new wanna, the wanna, right?

So in that regard, I think that that would be a... And I'm sure you have a thousand thoughts on that you'd want to say, but what are your thoughts when someone says, well, things that are beneath me, or when I say beneath me, you understand, you know, the things that are...

Within your control.

...within my control. Well, I just happen to think that it's within your control to accept or reject the gospel, and so the fact that Calvinists don't is where we disagree.

Is there anything outside of my control? Well, sure. You can't start flapping your arms and flying. Okay. So that would be one example. Well, let me back up, and again, I don't want people to say... My tone sounded as if I was being debating, and I'm not.

But okay, so you and I think would both agree that it is beyond my control to, from this moment on, never sin again.

Well, again, what would you consider logically possible versus feasible? Yeah, we had this conversation. Yeah, we had this conversation in the parking lot. They didn't get to hear us have this conversation.

No, no, and I can go over it again if you want me to, but it kind of goes down the line of some of the philosophical issues of if any moment of sin from this point forward, you leave this place, and let's say you're stopped by a police officer, and you're tempted to lie to him in order to get out of the ticket or not to lie, do you have the free choice as a Christian to say yes or no?

And I think most people generally would say, yeah, you could lie or not lie. Well, that would be a choice of libertarian freedom. Now, to do that with every single temptation you have from now until the end of your life, you could go to each one of those and say, well, yes, it's logically possible that you're going to make the right decision in any given moment.

Is it feasible to suggest that a sinful person with sinful desires in a fallen world with dozens of temptations hitting him every hour of the day with thoughts and attitudes and hearts that you would never, ever, ever, ever sin again?

No, it's not feasible that that would happen. Is it logically possible? Yes, you can make that argument, because at every point of temptation, the person, I would think a born-again person especially, has the, as 1 Corinthians 10, 13, the way of escape, the ability to take the right action when pressed with temptation.

And so that would be how I'd answer. And I have to ask this question, and this may not be a simple answer, we'll see, and I know we could be here all night, so I got to, I can't keep going through it.

They're closing the doors, yeah. I know. Is sin a choice only or is sin in nature?

Depends on what you mean by nature, and I know that's a fun thing. This may be something. A fun philosophical answer to that, but that's very true.

Well, I don't think, I don't know that it's necessarily philosophical. I think when Paul talks about, in Romans, for instance, where we're referring to, it's not me that sinned, but the sin that dwelleth within me, right?

Like he's not referring to a choice at that point. I think he's referring to something within him.

Well, the only reason I mention, it depends on what you mean by nature, is that sometimes when people are referring to nature, they're talking about their desires, or the character, for example. So if I see the nature or desires as influential, not determinative.

So for example, I may have, I love cake. I love the taste of cake. What's cake? I'm just kidding. You're right. Yeah.

By the way, your joke about the beard. My double chin? Yeah. It's hilarious. I have self-deprecating humors.

Well, Jeff said, I have a beard, because they were talking about, well, the cow just have a beard. He goes, I don't have a beard because I'm a Calvinist. I have a beard because I have a weak, I have no chin.

And I said, I have one because I have two. It's hilarious. That got the crowd rolling. Anyway, what we're talking about, oh, nature. Okay, so desires. I don't think desires are determinative. I think the agent is the determiner.

Desires influence the agent. And so I have a desire to eat cake. I also have a desire to lose weight. Okay? Both of those are competing desires. If I choose to eat cake because it tastes so good, that doesn't mean the taste of cake determined my choice to eat.

I chose to eat based upon that desire. If I choose the other direction, which I could and should, especially if my wife's around I'm more likely to, because she's my accountability partner when it comes to me eating correctly, then I may make a choice based upon that desire.

But the desire is influential. So I'm not making a choice without reasons. I have a reason. I ate the cake because it tastes so good. I ate the cake because I really love cake. I was really, really hungry.

There's a lot of those desires. But desires aren't determinative. And when a Calvinist argues that we make a choice based upon our greatest desire, they turn desire from an influence into a determinative factor.

That it ultimately determines the agent to make the choice, which I think reduces humanity to animal instinctive reflexes, where the lion chooses to eat meat instead of a bell of hay because it's his greatest desire.

Well, of course it's his greatest desire, because he's an instinctive being, an instinctive creature, that is always going to choose meat over grass. The cow, however, walks up to the same pile of meat and the pile of hay, and he chooses the hay instinctively, not as a moral choice.