Radio Free Geneva: Roger Olson's "Against Calvinism" Reviewed (Part 1)

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Response to Unitarians Dave Barron and Patrick Navas, Part 2

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And welcome to Radio Free Geneva on the Dividing Line on this Thursday afternoon, glad that you could be with us today as we once again seek to defend the

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Reformed faith against those who would, well, let's just say that once again we have another one of those examples where we have someone who is much more interested in a monologue than a dialogue.

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And yes, I refer to Dr. Roger Olson, whose recent book

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Against Calvinism, Rescuing God's Reputation from Radical Reformed Theology.

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I came out just a few weeks ago and I would have reviewed it earlier, but it came out right before I went to Australia and was just a tad bit busy over the course of those 20 days where I spoke 47 times.

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So I'm just now getting around to it, having listened to the book yesterday while doing one of my very enjoyable rides around South Mountain Park here in Phoenix, which of course is about 33 miles and 3 ,500 feet of ascent.

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So that seems to be where I encounter the most interesting things to listen to and that's what we did.

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Yesterday, I actually started reading it on the flight out to Australia, but had not completely completed it at that time.

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So I want to take the time to provide a response as best we can. I'm not sure if I can squeeze it into the time today or if I'll just end up going, we've got to go a little longer than a normal DL.

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We'll see. We'll see. I will attempt to be succinct if that is possible for me to be succinct.

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I am enjoying sitting here today. I tweeted. I wanted to blog it, but I'm fighting to get a really cool program

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I just bought to actually work to FTP images up to the site. Just one shot and it's there and I'll be able to link it directly on the blog.

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It would really save me a lot of time. Just not getting it to work right yet. So I did tweet it for those of you who would like to see the new setup we have here in the

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Dividing Lines studio. I have four screens in front of me now, two MacBook Pros, both running an extra screen beyond their own.

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And I don't know, I'm just sort of feeling like I'm flying a spaceship or something right now.

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It was something I used to do when I was a kid. My dad would take me out to the radio station when he was a chief engineer and there was this board that they had and it was no longer connected to anything, but it had all sorts of knobs and lights and sliding things.

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And oh man, I took on every alien race there was behind that thing.

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That was a blast. But anyhow, I've got a

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Fuller student saying, thanks for doing my homework for me. I was going to use part of Olsen's book for a paper. It's like you are back at Fuller.

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No, I am not back at Fuller. I don't think Dr. Mao would, well, he would probably not let me back at Fuller.

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Anyways, might take some calls toward the end of the hour, but I really, really, really, really doubt it.

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There's just too much to get to at this particular point in time. I am, once again, using the

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Kindle edition of Roger Olsen's book, so the page numbers that I give will correspond to whatever

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Kindle is telling me. Whether your Kindle tells you the same thing or not, I have no control over that.

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But let's dive in. I think a good summary statement is found beginning on page 23.

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It's a short book, only 208 pages. A lot of that is actually notes toward the end.

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Well, not a lot, but there's notes toward the end. So it's a fairly short book. Certainly, if you're looking for a response to something like The Potter's Freedom, this isn't even close.

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This doesn't even pretend to do this. At one point, he says, look, this book isn't a defense of Arminian theology.

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If you want that, go read my Arminian Theology. It's sort of like a read -my -book -type comment.

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There is no attempt, seriously, on Olsen's part to even pretend that his position is a exegetically -derived position.

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And in fact, given what he has stated, I had a number of people report on his comments that he made at the dialogue with Michael Horton over at,

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I believe it was Biola. It was over in California anyways. I had a couple of people there, and they tweeted me or text messaged me on my phone some of the comments that Olsen made.

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And he has basically made the statement that even if he could be convinced that certain biblical texts actually taught what

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Calvinists say they taught, he wouldn't believe it. He wouldn't believe it. Because his overriding belief is in the goodness of God.

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Of course, his understanding of what the goodness of God mandates what that means. And he just can't believe that God would do the things that Calvinists say

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God does. And therefore, he wouldn't believe it anyway. So this is not a book written by a person who is deriving his theology from the highest view of scripture.

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He doesn't have the highest view of scripture. He's not as conservative as a lot of critics of Reformed theology are.

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And so you're just not going to find a meaningful interaction. Oh, he'll criticize.

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He criticizes R .C. Sproul, for example, for not having an extended discussion of 1

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Timothy 2 .4. Of course, as we pointed out, and as you should be aware, he was asked why he didn't interact with myself and Norman Geisler.

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He interacted with many, many other books, including books written by people who are called apologists.

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He quotes John Frame, for example. But he says he does not read either James White or Norman Geisler on principle.

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And as you all know, when I attempted to ask him on his blog what he meant by that, he deleted my comment.

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I tried to write to him. He did not respond. He just doesn't seem to be an overly friendly type guy.

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He has some type of animosity toward me personally, but he won't tell me why it is. So there's not much that I can do about that.

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And so I'll just review the book. And once again, we will have, as we have seen so many times before, one side that's desirous of dialogue, the other side desirous of monologue.

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And that's the best that we can do. And so you're not going to find in this book a response to Potter's Freedom, because you're not going to find, you're just going to have him making, and hopefully you will read along with this review, the written commentary that I made as soon as I got the book.

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It was right before I went to Australia. All I had time to do was to do a search on 1 Timothy 2 .4.

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And I went through the entire book on all the comments he made upon 1 Timothy 2 .4 and demonstrated that he didn't even attempt to interact with the meaningful exegesis of the text and did not offer his own.

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He had simply made, the Greek can only be understood one way. Well, he's wrong. He's just dead wrong about it.

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And if he were to debate anyone who could read the language, he would not be able to defend that kind of assertion.

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But that's why he doesn't want a dialogue. He wants a monologue. You can just say those things that way and you don't have to worry about actually defending it.

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And that's an unfortunate thing, but that's just the way that things work.

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So I think on page, beginning on page 23, we have a good summary of the argumentation that is said here and that is stated in this book.

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It says, "...taken to their logical conclusion that even hell and all who will suffer there eternally are foreordained by God.

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God is thereby rendered morally ambiguous at best and a moral monster at worst." By the way, moral monster appears eight times in this book.

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"...I have gone so far as to say that this kind of Calvinism, which attributes everything to God's will and control, makes it difficult, at least for me, to see the difference between God and the devil.

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Some of my Calvinist friends have expressed offense at that, but I continue to believe it is a valid question worth pursuing."

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Of course, I just stop for a moment and say, how is that a question? It's not a question, it's a statement. I'm not sure what he means by that.

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Anyways, what I mean is that if I were a Calvinist and believe what these people teach,

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I would have difficulty telling the difference between God and Satan. I will unpack that in more detail throughout this book.

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And so, there, in essence, is the argumentation, as far as I can see, of where Roger Olson's coming from, and it is a position derived from other considerations and then enforced upon scripture.

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It is not exegetical. The exegesis of this book is as bad as Bryson, as bad as Hunt.

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Nothing could be as bad as a culture side of Calvinism, Michael Coates' book.

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But they all partake of the same level of unfounded assumption taken as fact, used as fact later on, and there just simply isn't much in the way of exegesis to interact with in the book.

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And that isn't overly surprising. There is nothing new in the book at all. I did not hear or encounter a single objection in the book.

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Not even, you know, like the absurdity in Michael Coates' book. Nothing like that.

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It was just, we've all heard all of this before, and there's nothing new at all.

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But it keeps getting thrown out there. In fact, it was interesting, he had said, right before that quote, he said,

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I believe someone needs finally to stand up and in love firmly say no to egregious statements about God's sovereignty often made by Calvinists, as if he's the first one to have done so.

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I mean, think of all the books that have come out recently just attacking

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Calvinism and attacking the Reformed faith and caricaturing it constantly.

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Now he says in his book, I have to be accurate, I have to be very careful, I can't caricature anything.

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But then he doesn't want to interact with anybody who would say, how come you didn't respond to this, and how come, no, no, no, no,

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I don't want to do that. Page 85, page 85 of Against Calvinism, many, perhaps most critics of Calvinism, actually this is page, yeah, it's still page 85, page 85, many, perhaps most critics of Calvinism register extreme dismay at its divine determinism.

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There are many reasons, but the first and foremost one is that it renders God morally impure, if not repugnant.

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One day at the end of a class session on Calvinism's doctrine of God's sovereignty, a student asked me a question

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I had put off considering. He asked, if it was revealed to you in a way you couldn't question or deny, that the true

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God actually is, as Calvinism says, and rules as Calvinism affirms, would you still worship him?

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I knew the only possible answer without a moment's thought. Even though I knew it would shock many people,

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I said, no, that I would not, because I could not. Such a

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God would be a moral monster. Of course, I realize Calvinists do not think their view of God's sovereignty makes him a moral monster, but I can only conclude they have not thought it through, yeah, we haven't thought it through, no, we've never, mm, no, to its logical conclusion or even taken sufficiently seriously the things they would say about God and evil and innocent suffering in the world.

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Now, I mean, that's just, two things. First of all, it's just offensive and absurd that a person who writes a 200 -page book on this subject would say that we have not thought it through.

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I just refer you to the, what, how many, two and a half hours or so that I invested in a single email response to one particular correspondent a couple of months ago on that very issue that went to ten times the depth of anything that Roger Olson has ever written on this subject.

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It's just amazing that someone can make a statement like that. But it's,

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I guess it isn't amazing when you consider that his response is, if it was revealed to you in a way you couldn't question or deny, that the true

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God actually is as Calvinism says. So in other words, if God revealed himself to you in this way, would you worship him?

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He says, no. And I just go, there you go. There's nothing new here. I've told the story many, many times before of when a

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Roman Catholic woman came to my office, she had called, and she was, she had been assigned to interview a fundamentalist.

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Well, she didn't know she was getting a Calvinist in the process. And when we got on to the doctrines of grace and God's sovereignty and salvation, and she just started looking horrified because I said, you know,

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God chooses his elect and there's nothing that we can do to force God's hand and all the rest of this stuff.

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And she's just like, and finally she just blurted out and said, I would never worship a

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God like that. And I said, I know, I know. Um, but of course

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I would say that she wasn't a believer. And I would say to Roger Olson, if God revealed himself to you in this way, and you are so in love with your traditions that you still wouldn't worship him, that means you're not a believer either.

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That means you are not under the authority of the word of God. Because the question was, if it was revealed to you in a way that you couldn't question or deny that the true

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God actually is as Calvinism says and rules as Calvinism affirms, would you still worship?

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And he said, no, no, no one did. That's, that's the response of an unchanged heart.

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It really is. I mean, this is dangerous. This is, this is, I'm not sitting here saying, see, all our minions are going to hell. What I am saying is if, if this is serious, then

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I have to question Roger Olson's conversion. I really do. Because here you have someone saying, no,

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I, I get to determine what God is worthy of my worship. I, I get to do that.

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He does not get to reveal who he is to me. I do not have to bow before the true

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God. The true God, if he is like this, I would never worship him. That to me is the essence of this book.

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There it is. There it is. Now he goes on, and you can tell this is a visceral reaction on his part.

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He goes on, perhaps no one has taken a stronger stance against Calvinism's doctrine of God's providence than theologian David Bentley Hart, who examined the role of God in innocent suffering in The Doors of the

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Sea, Where Was God in the Tsunami. There he calls the view espoused by high Calvinist theological fatalism and says that people who hold that view defame the love and goodness of God out of a servile and unhealthy fascination with his dread sovereignty.

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Then he says, if indeed there was a God whose true nature, whose justice or sovereignty were revealed in the death of a child, or the dereliction of a soul, or a predestined hell, sounds like I have to wonder where Olson is on the existence of hell at that point, then it would be no great transgression to think of him as a kind of malevolent or contemptible demi -urge, and to hate him, and to deny him worship, and to seek a better God than he.

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End quote. I find it helpful to quote Hart at some length, as he expresses my own and most non -Calvinist feelings about Calvinism's divine determinism, including sin and evil and innocent suffering, so clearly and courageously.

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So he does not, he does not raise any questions where he is disagreeing with what

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Hart said there and what Hart continues to say. One should consider the price at which that comfort, um, oh this, this was a,

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I'm sorry, back up a second, there's a preceding story that he tells of someone who came to a, someone who was a speaker, and the speaker kept saying,

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God killed my son. And he was specifically talking about the death of his son and how that was not a surprise to God, and how that was part of God's decree, and so on and so forth.

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So he's talking about that, Hart is, and he says, one should consider the price at which that comfort, that is, that of the

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Calvinist speaker who preached, God killed my son, is purchased. It requires us to believe in and love a

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God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of, but entirely by way of every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known.

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It requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines and so on.

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It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome."

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With great reluctance, because I know it may deeply offend Calvinists, I can only say, Amen. So, we have heard these arguments, but you know where we've heard them before.

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They're from atheists. Because the problem is, these are arguments against theism. And you really, this is, this is where, this is where I really find the book to be not even worth the investment of the money, because though there is a weak and brief attempt on Olson's part to give a very surface level discussion of what permission means, there is no robust, meaningful, positive presentation of a theology of God and his relationship to a decree, to the future, to time,

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Mullenism, open theism, et cetera, et cetera, by Olson. He doesn't even, he doesn't really even try.

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He says, ah, you know, go read my Armenian theology. Of course, and I'm not, there is a section of responses to Calvinistic objections.

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I'm going to, I'm going to get to that. But of course, my, my response to Roger Olson and to David Bentley Hart, I believe is the name he used here, um, yeah,

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David Bentley Hart, um, is if your God created this universe knowing before he created it that all those things are going to happen, you have to answer the same questions, sir, sirs, you have to answer the same questions.

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If, if God did what he did, if God created knowing every one of those things, the death of a child, uh, the necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, did

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God know that was going to happen? When he created, could he have kept that from happening by just not creating?

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If your God knew when he created it was going to happen, then you have to answer the question of purpose.

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It sounds like, it certainly is the absolute necessity given what Olson says, that what you're going to have to believe is that God, quote unquote, permitted all of this for no purpose.

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No reason. There's, there's no purpose. He created purposeless, purposeless evil, and that empties the death of the child, the mother ravaged by cancer, the tens of thousands of Asians swallowed an instant by the sea, empties all of it of meaning.

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There can't be any justice seen there because, well, that Romans nine thing about the demonstration of his power and justice and might, that can't be part of God's purposes because that would make

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God evil and I won't worship a God like that. And so, so what's the cost?

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Did your God know? Are you open theists? I mean, that's why I say the only consistent Arminianism is open theism and open theism is not even really theism.

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When you think about it, a God who does not know the future isn't really much of a God. And don't get me wrong, when

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I say open theism is the only consistent Arminianism, I'm not saying it's a really viable alternative. First of all, it's not the

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God of the Bible, clearly and obviously. But secondly, the idea of, of a

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God throwing the dice, not knowing what's going to happen. Oh, let's just see what happens. Oh, wow.

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Ooh, lots of evil. Ooh, sorry about that, but I'll try to help you out here as best I can. You'd rather worship that God?

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Sounds like you'd rather worship a God who really isn't much of a God at all. And so when

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Roger Olson amens what is really an argument against theism, it's an atheistic argument.

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It tells you a lot about where he's really coming from and, and what is really going on here.

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But that's, that's the very essence. That is the, that's the heart, the very heart of this book.

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I mean, seriously, the vast majority of the written argumentation in the book is all against the concept of determinism.

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And he quotes a lot from Sproul and Piper and Edwards and sort of tries to create divisions between them.

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Sometimes, sometimes it is because they're taking slightly different views. And sometimes not.

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And we have, we have addressed all of this so many times before that I'm not going to bother doing it again because it's just, it's not in -depth argumentation.

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It's not, well, it's just not worth it, to be perfectly honest with you. There's nothing new.

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It's all been refuted before. And the, clearly

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Olson is not interested or is not, is not aware of or care enough about.

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Ralph just changed his, his Twitter nick to, or his Twitter picture to Radio Free Geneva.

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That's sort of cool. He doesn't, just doesn't care enough, doesn't, isn't aware enough, doesn't want to respond to any of these things.

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And so it's a, it's another surface level, I'm not really going to interact with the

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Calvinist type of a, type of a blast. This is clearly indicated by the chapter, beginning on page 136, entitled

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Yes to Atonement, No to Limited Atonement, Particular Redemption. And I, I really wanted to see, because there hadn't been any mean, there, there had been just surface level little, well, you know, that Genesis 50 thing, it doesn't really mean the guy had a purpose in doing that, and nothing in -depth, you know, very surface level stuff.

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But when you come to this issue, you find out whether a writer is seriously talking about, you know, seriously interacting with the subject or whether or not.

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Because the, the essence of the atonement, the relationship of the offices of Christ, the rich, deep testimony of the book of Hebrews to the intention of the triune

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God in the atonement and the result of that atonement, all of this is part and parcel of the best of Reformed theology.

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And so, if a book, and if a writer is actually trying, seriously trying to interact with the best that we have to offer, then they are going to have to deal with this.

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They're gonna have to deal with our argumentation at that point. And if they don't, if they only give a surface level response, if they only say, well, you know,

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Christ died for the church, that doesn't mean that he didn't die for other people outside the church. If they, if they don't even attempt to deal with the issues of double jeopardy, union with Christ, who was united with Christ in his death, how was one united with Christ's death, clearly the issues of Christ as high priest, the relationship between the offering and intercession, that for me is the big thing.

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If you don't talk about that, you're not even, you're not even the game. You are not even trying to seriously interact with the subject at hand.

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You're just not. You shouldn't be wasting the poor trees that will give their lives to carry the ink that will be wasted in your surface level comments.

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You just shouldn't be doing it. And so, I looked at,

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I listened to this chapter particularly closely, and he starts off telling the story of one of the

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Calvinist speakers for the Reform University Fellowship, and how he pressed the idea of, if Christ already suffered everyone's punishment for sins, including the sin of unbelief, then nobody can go to hell because it would be unjust for God to punish the same sin twice.

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Well, that's quite true. The speaker was bringing out one of high Calvinism's favorite hooks to get young people to consider, including in their soteriology, the

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L of TULIP, limited atonement, and if anyone does accept L, Calvinists argue, they have to accept the rest of the system.

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Well, I've never argued that, ah, once you've got that, you've got to accept all the rest of it. The argument is that it's all consistent and that you should be consistent in your beliefs.

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That's honoring God. Clever, but does it work?

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Is limited atonement, which most Calvinists prefer to call particular redemption, biblical? Is it consistent with love of God, shown in Jesus Christ, and expressed in the

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New Testament many times and in many ways? For example, John 3 .16, which of course he quotes over and over and over again.

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He doesn't quote much from like Revelation where Jesus rules a nation with a rod of iron and doesn't quote the stuff where Jesus talks about, you know, the destruction of his enemies.

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None of that kind of stuff. He has a very squishy view of Jesus, very squishy, and very imbalanced view of Jesus.

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It's not the Jesus of the New Testament. It's the Jesus holding the nice little lamb and standing outside the noblest door knocking and that type of thing is what

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I got, anyways. Then he talks about, you know, church history and Calvin and all the rest of this stuff.

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He says, my conclusion will be that limited atonement is another one of High Calvinism's Achilles' heels. It cannot be supported by scripture or the great tradition, capital

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G, capital T, of Christian belief outside of scholastic Calvinism after Calvin. It contradicts the love of God, making

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God not only partial but hateful toward the non -elect. Now stop right there for just a moment. Think about what that means.

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If God does not, out of grace, provide atonement for the undeserving, then that is expressing hate toward the non -elect.

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Do you see what the absence of necessity is here? There is no freedom of God in Olson's system. God has to try to save everyone equally.

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There can't be, there's no other way of doing it. He has to try to save everyone equally.

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Just absolute necessity. He has no freedom in regards to the expression of his grace.

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It has to be given to everyone equally or he's being hateful. There you go.

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Its rejection does not logically require universalism, and those who hold it do believe it because they think logic requires it and scripture allows it, not because any clear portion of scripture teaches it.

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And so he then, interestingly enough, as George Bryson does, attacks four -pointers.

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He says another conclusion here will be that the T -U -I -N -P of TULIP do require the

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L, and that Calvinists who claim to be four -pointers and reject the L are being inconsistent.

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Ironically, there I stand in agreement with all high Calvinists of the TULIP variety. I can just see certain people going, oh no!

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Certain people who are far more interested in attacking limited atonement, and while calling themselves

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Calvinists, than they are in promoting the freedom of God and salvation. Certain people that we've talked about many times here on the program.

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I will also argue that belief in limited atonement, particularly redemption, makes it impossible, reasonably, to make a well -meant offer of the gospel, boy, wherever you heard this one, of salvation to everyone indiscriminately.

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Ironically, thereto I stand in agreement with hyper -Calvinists, not high Calvinists, but hyper -Calvinists.

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Uh, finally, this was interesting, finally, the Calvinist speaker to my class aimed his last typical

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Calvinist argument at me, and those students who agreed the atonement cannot be limited. You may not know it, but you also limit the atonement.

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In fact, you limit it more than Calvinists do. It is actually you Arminians, and he meant to include all who say Christ died for everyone, who believe in limited atonement.

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That got the students' attention. I had heard it before and already knew where he was going with this. You limit the atonement by robbing it of power to say, actually save anyone.

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For you, Christ's death on the cross only provided an opportunity for people to save themselves. We Calvinists believe the atonement actually secured salvation for the elect.

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Here, as then, I will object to this attempt to turn the tables. I do not agree that non -Calvinists limit the atonement. This frequently heard complaint simply doesn't hold water because even

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Calvin did not believe the atonement saved anyone until certain conditions are met, namely repentance and faith.

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Even if these are gifts of God to the elect, that means the atonement no more saved people than Arminians and other non -Calvinists believe.

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Well, there's a good example of Olson's ignorance of Calvin's theology, and especially

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Olson's ignorance of the concept of union with Christ, the union of the elect with Christ, and the fact that the atonement does save.

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He basically tries to get around this by saying, well, yeah, but you experienced it in time.

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Well, duh, how else could it be for anyone who lives after the time of Christ? I mean, of course we experience it in time, but we've already been seated in the heavenly places in Christ too.

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I mean, you're talking about a divine transaction and its interaction with time. The question is, what actually brings about forgiveness?

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Is it the cross or is it not? And from what I can tell from Olson's saying, it's not the cross.

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The cross makes it available, but it doesn't actually guarantee it. It doesn't actually bring it about.

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And I just, I do not see any way for Olson to,

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I mean, he seems to affirm some form of substitutionary atonement, but he then goes on to affirm that Christ substituted for every single human being and doesn't have any problem going, yes,

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Christ could bear God's wrath for the sins of John Brown, who dies and goes to hell.

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And I don't have any problem with Christ enduring that wrath and John Brown enduring that wrath, both.

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That's okay. That's good. That can happen. That's his, that's his view. So, was the wrath of God against John Brown actually propitiated or not?

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You see, there's a, there's a fund, this is, there's a fundamental undercutting of the true meaning of propitiation in this form of Arminian theology.

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When you hold this view of atonement, you can say that you believe in a propitiatory sacrifice, but what you're saying is that the, the reason for the wrath of God, what brings the wrath of God may have, that may be taken away by Christ, but the wrath of God still exists against the sinner and he will suffer in eternity for it, in hell.

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So how is it really propitiatory is the question I have to ask. Is it really 437? Really, honestly,

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I sort of feel like I just started. That's, that's not good. This, this may, this, this, this probably means we don't really need to worry about going along.

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We're just going to have to go for the next program. That's just, that's just all there is to it is we're just going to have to go on Tuesday.

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This is a webcast. We can go however long we need to. Not when you've got a book due by the end of the year.

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And I've got a lot to be doing here this evening. So that's one of the things I got to keep in mind. Anyway, he goes on to say, uh,

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I kept waiting to hear for the discussion of, um,

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John Owen and I finally got to it. Um, and let me see if I can find here.

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He, uh, he finally got to it on page 142. Sproul continues by throwing another tired accusation against Arminian theology and any theology of universal atonement.

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If Christ really objectively satisfied the demands of God's justice for everyone, then everyone will be saved.

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That flows from what I just said. Here Sproul is relying heavily on the theology of Puritan theologian, John Owen, who was one of the early defenders of the theological novelty of limited atonement.

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According to Owen and Sproul, universal atonement, the belief that Christ bore the punishment for every person necessarily leads to universal salvation.

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After all, Owen argued, and Sproul echoes him, how can the same sin, including unbelief, be punished twice by a just God?

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Now again, it's not just punished. It is the wrath of God and the reason for the wrath of God that is removed in propitiation.

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That's what a propitiatory sacrifice is, okay? So he goes on to say, one has to wonder whether Sproul has never heard the obvious answer to this, the obvious answer to this, or if he is simply choosing to ignore it.

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See my answer later in this chapter. Suffice it for now to say simply that this argument is so easily turned aside that it makes one wonder why anyone takes it seriously.

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Well, now here you have John Owen, seven volumes on the book of Hebrews, the death of death and the death of Christ written in his 20s, and you have

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Roger Olson, that towering intellect, dismissing his arguments.

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I'm sorry, I don't get the feeling he's ever read Owen to any depth at all. And so to go, oh, so easily turned aside that it makes one wonder why anyone takes it seriously.

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Well, let's see how this is easily turned aside.

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Page 149, the claim that objective atonement necessarily includes or entails subjective personal salvation is faulty.

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The argument so frequently made at least since John Owen's the death of death and the death of Christ, that Christ either died for all and therefore all are saved or he died for some and therefore some are saved is logically absurd.

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It simply ignores the real possibility that Christ suffered the punishment for many people who never enjoy that liberation from punishment.

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Why would Christ suffer punishment for people who never enjoy its benefits? Because of God's love for all.

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I guess that's part of the answer, but I don't see how it's an answer at all. Okay, so their punishment and the reason for their punishment is fully satisfied in the atoning work of Christ and the reason for their then being punished for that having been removed is what again?

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The love of God? Oh, no, no, it's something they didn't do. They didn't enjoy that liberation.

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If you're looking for Bible passages here, you're not going to, there weren't any offered.

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But you do have stories, parables told. I continue on.

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There is still the matter of Owens and most high Calvinists argue with the same sin cannot be punished twice. Again, that's simply false.

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Imagine a person who is fined by a court. Now I stop immediately. We're talking here about a concept that is specifically laid out in scripture, the atoning work of Christ.

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We are talking about a subject, a subject about which there is direct didactic revelation in scripture.

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We are told what the exact result of Christ's work is, the perfection of those for whom it is made.

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Hebrews chapter 10. We are told about the ability of the

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Savior who intercedes for all those for whom he has made atonement. Hebrews chapter 7. He is able to save them,

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Panteles, to the uttermost. We have all of that. Does it appear anywhere in this chapter? Nope.

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Nope. Doesn't appear. Instead, we get a story, a non -biblical story, an extra -biblical story as a determining factor.

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Again, good illustration of what Arminians just don't get, and what they don't get is that until they start providing positive, deep, exegetical, biblically -based defenses of their position, they're going to continue to lose the battle as they have in each generation.

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It's just the way it is. And as long as you have people of any age that are serious about the

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Bible, and serious about exegesis, and serious about the word of God says, they're not going to find this fluff to be overly convincing.

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Now, people who don't care about Owen, and they just want to get through this subject and on to something else, that'll work for them.

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That'll work for them. He says, Imagine a person who is fined by a court $1 ,000 for a misdemeanor, and someone else steps in and pays the fine.

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What if the fined person declines to accept that payment and insists on paying the fine himself? Or herself?

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Will the court automatically refund the first thousand? Probably not. It's the risk the first person takes in paying his friend's fine.

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In such a case, the same punishment would be paid twice. It is not that God exacts the same punishment twice.

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It is that the sinner who refused the free offer of salvation by default subjects himself or herself to the punishment that has already been suffered for him or for her.

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As noted above, that's what makes hell so terribly tragic. So, what makes hell, folks, terribly tragic, according to Roger Olson, is that everybody in there doesn't need to be.

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Think about that for just a second. Think about that for just a second. The tragedy of hell is that Jesus has already suffered all this wrath, and yet, the wrath is still there.

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And the wrath still has to—does it have to be poured out? I mean, let's—since it's not a biblical example, we can play with it all we want.

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Um, would the judge—would it be perfectly right if the judge goes,

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Excuse me, uh, clerk, has that fine been paid? Yes, sir, it has. Okay. Bye -bye.

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But I want to pay—I want to pay—sorry, not interested. Bye. Hasta la vista. Mess up our accounting, man.

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Tweet us. We don't want it. Out of here. Would he be right to do that? Of course he could!

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So, what you're saying is, God pours out his wrath upon hell to no end?

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It has nothing to do with justice anymore, does it? Justice has been removed.

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It's gone. It's over with. So, why is he doing it? I don't know.

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I have—I have no earthly idea. He goes on. So, there is a difference between the provision of forgiveness of sins and the application of forgiveness of sins.

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Calvin knew this. I suspect most Calvinists know it. But such knowledge takes a backseat of their desire to wield their argument that universal atonement would require universal salvation.

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No. Olson and those like him have simply not opened their ears to hear.

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They aren't dealing with what atonement means. They aren't dealing with what the atonement of Christ accomplished, the union with Christ, the elect, and all this—the deep stuff of theology.

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They're skimming over the top of that. And remember, this is from a guy who said, hey, if this is what

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God's real like, I ain't gonna worship him anyway. So, is he really—does he really strike you as someone who has a motive to seriously deal with these issues?

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I mean, once you've said, look, whatever it is, it ain't that. I don't care what the

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Bible says. It's not that. Then, where do you go from there, you know? It impacts everything else, in toto, in the discussion.

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There's no question about it. So, let's dive into this.

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We've got about 11 minutes left in the program. For those of you whining, complaining, oh, why aren't you going any longer?

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Because I need to get some work on the book done, basically. And I tend to get more done in the evenings, because the email slows down, and it's just easier to do.

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I get more stuff done on book projects in the evenings than I do in the mornings. It's just the way I am. And so, yeah, we got used to doing jumbos and megas for a while, and those are fun to do, and we'll do some again in the future, but priorities are priorities.

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I really like to see this book get out, and so I need to start making progress. And we have another dividing line.

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I'm here all of November, and I've even arranged the one little trip that I've got in the middle so that I can do the dividing line in the morning, leave right afterwards, and come racing back just in time to do it on Thursday.

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So, should be pretty consistent in our time, and, hey, if something comes up, if Olsen decides to make some type of a comment, which

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I really doubt he will, because he just strikes me as the type of guy that is not into real meaningful dialogue.

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I mean, I know he got together with Mike Horton, but I'll be perfectly honest with you, everybody that was there said Mike Horton was way, way, way, way, way, way, way too lax and lenient with him.

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And I don't know what the background of that is, but, hey, if someone stood up in front of me in an audience and said, hey, if this is what really the

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Bible is, I'm not going to believe this. I am going to point that out, okay? I am going to point that out of necessity.

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The second appendix to the book, beginning on page 188, responses to Calvinist claims gives us the closest we're going to get to interaction.

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And since it only goes one direction, then we get to provide the other direction. And if Roger Olsen wants to actually interact, then we can interact.

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I mean, hey, my debate in January that I was going to be having has been temporarily postponed.

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We're looking at April now. The other side had some internal issues in their company that no longer makes that a possibility.

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In January, we're going to hope for April. Hey, I would be happy while down there debating a

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Muslim to arrange a debate with Roger Olsen. That'd be great. That'd be fine. It'd be wonderful. It'd be very enjoyable. But something tells me that, you know, anyway, that would require him actually to read my book.

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And on principle, he's not going to do that. So, on principle, that's just the way things go. All right.

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Responses to Calvinist claims. Number one. Any other view of God's sovereignty than Calvinism diminishes the glory of God, only the doctrines of grace fully honor and uphold

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God's glory. I would agree with that. Response. It all depends on what God's glory means. If it means power, then perhaps this is correct, but power isn't glorious except when guided by goodness and love.

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Hitler was powerful, but obviously not glorious. Jesus Christ revealed God is our Father and therefore is good and loving.

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In fact, High Calvinism, TULIP, wrongly labeled the doctrines of grace by Calvinists, diminishes God's glory by depicting

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Him as malicious and arbitrary. Furthermore, if Calvinism is correct, nothing can diminish the glory of God because God foreordained everything for His glory.

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Aside from the silliness of the last sentence. Again, I would dispute that Roger Olson, in his repeated references to the

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God revealed in Jesus Christ, is giving us a balanced view of, well, the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Jesus said a lot of very strong things.

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And it seems like folks on the Armenian side have a very worldly view.

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That's my essence of things. Most people on the Armenian side don't like the strong elements of Jesus' teaching and His behavior and His actions.

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You know, the Psalm 2, you know, crushing the nations, you know, with a rod of iron and crushing them like a potsherd and stuff like that, you know, that rulership stuff, judgment stuff, you know, kings of the nation kiss the sun lest he be angry with you, that kind of stuff.

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Nah, I don't like that stuff. I would simply allow the Bible maybe to define this and again,

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Romans 9, rather clearly, what if God wanted to reveal, to make known

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His power, His judgment? What if?

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Well, I think for a lot of folks, that what if just doesn't get answered. Number two, non -Calvinist theology of salvation, such as Arminianism, makes salvation depend on good works because the sinner's decision to elect

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Christ is made the decisive factor in his or her salvation. This is a standard canard. We are not saying it makes it work salvation.

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What we're saying is it makes man the ultimate decider in the matter of salvation and therefore what you're saying is that the deciding factor is found in man himself.

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That when we stand before God, we're going to be able to look at those who are under His punishment and say, I was in some way better than them, more spiritually sensitive, something, but I was better than they were.

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That's the argument. And Arminians like to spin it and say that, oh, you're just saying we believe in work salvation.

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No, we're saying is you are synergists, not monergists. And that synergism in some way, shape or fashion has to answer the question, why me and not somebody else?

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And the answer is always found in me, not in the grace of God. His answer. It seems more the case that Calvinism makes salvation depend on good works or something good about persons elect to salvation or else how does

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God choose them out of the mass of people destined for hell? It's called the good purpose of His will.

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Unconditional election. He says it's either something God sees in them or else God's choice of them is arbitrary and capricious.

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No ultimate being can be arbitrary and capricious. Okay? Human beings can be arbitrary and capricious because we're ignorant and we're limited.

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And in comparison to God, we're stupid. But God is not ignorant and God is not limited and He created all things.

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Therefore, by nature, He cannot be arbitrary or capricious, but He is free and His grace is free and it cannot be demanded,

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Dr. Olson. Furthermore, Arminian theology does not make salvation depend on good works.

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All the work of salvation is God's. The sinner is unable to repent and believe by God's prevenient grace.

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And the bare decision to accept God's salvation is not a good work. It is simply accepting the gift of grace. In no case is accepting a gift considered a decisive factor in its being possessed.

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Really? In no case is accepting a gift considered the decisive factor in its being possessed.

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Well, then what is the decisive factor? What is the decisive factor?

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If it's not man's free will choice, what is it? That's just so blatantly self -contradictory, it's shocking.

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Number three. Only Calvinism can explain how God saw to it that Christ would die

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His atoning death on the cross. Unless God foreordained that certain sinful men would crucify Him, God could not have assured it.

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Well, that's a rather odd way of expressing the fact that the Bible says that what

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God decrees, God does. Whatever God pleases, He does in the heavens and the earth, Psalm 356.

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Daniel chapter 4, these are verses that he cites. Doesn't really exegete, but he cites and is well aware of them elsewhere in the book.

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This is wholly unnecessary to suppose. Surely God in His wisdom and power can assure that a certain event, and for some reason event is capitalized, happened without manipulating certain people to sin.

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Really? So He could make sure that the sinless Son of God would be crucified, but that no one sinned in the process?

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I would like to, could someone suggest the scenario? Excuse me,

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I shouldn't laugh, but can someone suggest the scenario? Whereby the sinless

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Son of God would be crucified without involving sin on the part of anyone.

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One alternative is that at the right time, Jesus Christ wrote in Jerusalem in the triumphal entry, knowing it would provoke

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His crucifixion. There is no need to manipulate certain individuals to sin. There you go, folks.

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I mean, it doesn't get much more shallow than that. One alternative is at the right time,

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Jesus Christ, Jesus knew exactly what time it would be, that if He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, it would result in His crucifixion without anyone sinning.

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Really? Seriously? Honestly? That's what, honestly?

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I, I, how do you respond to that? So, the Romans aren't going to sin in, the

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Jews aren't going to be sinning and turning Him over in Herod and Pontius Pilate? How about just,

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Roger Olson, how about just going to Acts 4 and listening to it for a second? Acts 4, 27 to 28.

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They did what your hand predestined to occur. Well, I'm not going to believe in a

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God like that. Well, then, sir, you don't believe the Bible. So, I think you should find another religion.

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Certainly another profession. Don't, don't pretend to be teaching the Bible or Christian theology.

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If you're willing to look at the early church and say, well, they may have believed that, but I, I'm not going to believe that.

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I'm not going to believe that. I, I just, it's, it's, I, I, it's, it's hard.

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Ralph just said, I'm not getting the whole vibe of Olson's argument. It's just the vibe of the thing.

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That is, that is the essence of, thank you very, very much. Oh, is today

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Ergen Cantor's birthday? Oh, I didn't know that. Hey, happy birthday, Ergen. Where were you born again? Where's this, where there are no

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Christians? No Christians in Sweden, huh? In the 1960s? None. Okay, all right. Yes, that is the essence of Olson's Armenian exegesis.

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It's just the vibe of the thing. Yeah, if you haven't seen The Castle, then you don't get that.

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But that's okay. I blame Cranmer for all of that. David Old is the one who, he forced me to do it.

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He really did, folks. He, he held something captive of mine, and I, he wouldn't give it back to me unless I, I used those, those jokes in that debate.

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Hey, we're going to continue with this. Another Radio Free Geneva coming up next Tuesday here on The Divining Line. We'll finish up Olson's book.