Calvinism and Open Q&A

It's fascinating to me how easily someone in one religion can find the fallacies and biases in another religion. I think that what's fascinating... You're razor sharp on your criticism of Islam here. Yeah, but what I find fascinating, Jeff, is that you recognize that with other religions, but you don't do it with your own.

I mean, that may be the case. And there's that confirmation bias coming up again. This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, you're the host from the Strive for Eternity Ministries, and we'll be right back.

Show Open and Audio Troubleshooting

Apologetics Live, here to answer your questions, challenges, anything that you have for us tonight. Pastor Justin, you're saying there's something with my audio. What's up with it?

I don't know. Maybe it's me. Okay, John, are you hearing my audio okay?

John, you in there? I can hear you, but you're sounding like a robotic.

Okay, he'll be right back, guys. Sorry about that. He's going to jump in and out and get himself fixed up. Sounded kind of like a robot. You're sounding pretty good. I sound amazing. I mean, I can't help it, guys.

Yeah, the audio was a little weird going on. Andrew will get it fixed in a minute. So, we just want to welcome everybody. Are you there, Andrew? Can't hear me yet. Yeah, we're good. I can hear you now.

We'll cut that in post. Yeah, we'll fix that. I'll make it professional. All right. Can you hear me now?

Yep. All right. Well, that's great. We could start that over. Had to reboot the Roadcaster for some reason. It's really strange, but the Roadcaster, as soon as I hit record, it was fine the whole pre-show, but as soon as I hit record, it acts up.

Kind of important. All right. Let's start recording again and see if it happens. All right. Let's do it. All right. Well, welcome to another Apologetics Live. We are here to answer any question you have about God and the Bible because we can answer any question that you have about God and the Bible.

Well, for a very simple reason. I say that I don't know is a perfectly good answer. All right. So, well, welcome, Pastor Justin and John. How are you guys doing this evening? Doing good. Fantastic. All right.

I was just wondering if John was going to say anything. All right. So, we are Anthony Free. Something. We are Anthony Free tonight because he is down in Dallas. He is speaking there with the guys at ICR.

And so that is a good opportunity for him. So he may or may not pop in. And so we'll see who else may. We got some folks that are popping in backstage. And so what we wanted to start off with briefly was to discuss the debate from last week.

Kind of a quick post-debate. And then we see some folks that are coming in. Maybe we get some questions. If you have any questions, want to join in the discussion, just go to ApologeticsLive .com. We're here Thursday nights.

You go to ApologeticsLive .com. That is where you can get all the information to watch, to join. You will be able to, from there, click on the duck icon for the StreamYard. And that will get you in to being able to join us, as others have and are already backstage.

Are you sleeping there, John? No, I'm doing a duck sound. You better just stick to your chickens, all right? Okay, all right, all right. So, you know, John, you were here for the whole debate. Now, Pastor Justin couldn't take it.

He could not take it. He watched half the debate and said, I can't take this guy. But there were a couple of things I do think are helpful for folks to pay attention to with the debate. Just to notice, and this is just to help people in their apologetics.

One of the things that we saw was, when we talked about Calvinism, early on and later on, he made the argument that he understands Calvinism. And do you remember what he said? He said he read Calvin's Institutes.

Now, I chose not to pick that apart. I mentioned to him he might want to read some books that actually deal with the subject. Because when people speak of Calvinism, they're not actually teaching the five points that Calvin taught.

And I don't think Seth understood that. One of the things we have to understand is that when we talk of Calvinism or doctrines of grace, and you have someone who says, well, I read Calvin. Okay, historically, you have the Calvinists.

And after Calvin, there were Calvinists that went to what we might call hyper-Calvinists into determinism. And then you had this guy, James Arminius. James Arminius, and very few understand this. Actually, R .C. Sproul wrote a book, and he understood this and pointed this out.

James Arminius was actually a Calvinist. In other words, the followers of Calvin went so far afield that he was trying to bring them back in. But the problem is his followers went so far afield that they kept going too far.

Just like Calvin's followers went too far one way, Arminius' followers went too far the other way. Calvin and Arminius may have had more agreement than their followers. And so the followers of Arminius came up with five points of Arminianism.

And the response to that was what is known as the five points of Calvinism. Now, it was interesting because when I was asking him about the five points of Calvinism, he said he understood it because he read John Calvin, which immediately told me he doesn't understand because Calvin never had the five points of Calvinism.

I was just going to ask you, was it Calvin who responded with the five points, or was it other people from churches that responded with the five points? Yeah, Calvin was long dead.

Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. After Calvin died is when his followers started continuing on a path, getting more and more deterministic. Arminius comes along and tries to pull them back in, but his followers go too far.

So Calvin wasn't even alive to respond to the five points of Arminianism.

So just to make clear that when you read Calvin's Institutes or anything from Calvin, you're not going to find the five points of Calvinism. I mean, you'll see the teachings of how it developed into the five points, but you're not going to find the five points added in there.

Correct. And Melissa is asking me, do I happen to know the name of the R .C. Sproul book? And I want to say that it's chosen to believe. Yeah, that's what it is. Okay. So, you know, it's one of his later chapters.

So one of the things, though, that I want you guys to see if you're ever, because this show, the purpose of this show, one of the purposes is to educate you guys on how to do apologetics so you could be a better apologist, a better defender of the Christian faith.

Well, let me just finish. So you'll see people that will do this. They will say, well, I know about a subject because I've read one thing. Or you'll hear a lot of times, well, I know a lot about Christianity because I grew up Christian.

None of us really understood Christianity because we grew up Christian. We understand Christianity if we start studying it. But being raised going to church doesn't necessarily give you a degree in Christianity.

And that's the argument many will make. And it's the same argument Seth was making that, well, I read Calvin. Well, that's fine. That's nothing of what we're talking about. We're discussing Calvinism, which is something that was way after Calvin died.

Yeah. Well, you know, the one thing that I want to encourage everybody with is that it is, well, I put it up online here and I want to pull this up. If you read Proverbs 18, verse 13, it says, He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him.

And so the danger is when you're talking past people and you're not listening, you don't actually hear the arguments and the comments that they're making. What I heard was a lot of, you know, just trying to win an argument and being contentious rather than listening to grow.

I mean, just because I may not agree with Andrew's position doesn't mean I can't be respectful and listen and consider what he's saying and why he's saying it. And in apologetics, you have to be quiet enough to hear the other person's argument and respectful enough.

I mean, we're talking to Christians, you know, even if you're not, but we're talking to Christians back and forth. We need to be respectful and say, you know, I don't agree with your position, but let me hear it.

And let's sit down and answer it with respect and with grace. And that's not what I heard last week. It was just, you know, what about this verse, this verse, this verse? Well, you know what, this one, this, and it just, it was, it would got to the point where to hear it for me was like on a, on a, on a scratching on a board.

You know, it was just, would you stop for a minute and listen to what's being said?

Yeah. And, and that was one of the things I brought out at the end, which you couldn't listen to. But I pointed that out that it was interesting because he didn't understand. I mean, over and over and over throughout the debate, he's telling me, you believe that God forces someone to believe over and over and over.

I kept saying, no, I don't believe that. I never said that. Now he claims afterwards, he told me, he gave me a minute. Mark said, you said this. And I told him, well, if I said that I misspoke. Yeah. But if I, if it's, it's, but he, he wouldn't let that go.

He kept saying that I talked about, you know, when I talked about the suffering is inevitable. He said that I was saying that, that God, that the belief is inevitable. And his whole thing is, you know, God, like God can offer salvation, but we don't actually believe it.

We have a choice to believe it or not. So that was, you know, that was a thing where he wasn't listening to what I was actually saying. So that was, that was one thing I picked up that I wanted to point out.

Another thing that I wanted to point out that you saw in that is, and you already mentioned this, Justin, is the fact of listening to your opponent. Arguing what they actually believe. Yeah. It shocked him when he realized that I don't claim to be a Calvinist.

And he was like, wait, well, how are you defending Calvinism? Because a good debater can defend something they don't believe. I can defend Islam. That's not a problem. But I don't have to believe in Islam.

But I can, I can make an argument for it. And that's the thing that I think that a lot of people kind of don't understand. We have to be able to understand the opponent's argument well enough to be able to debate their side of an argument.

And when you can, then you understand the issue that they're raising. But if you're doing as Seth was, he was debating something that I didn't hold to. And yet continued arguing it. And it makes someone that does that look bad.

Well, when you argue just from emotion, and your whole entire argument is based on, I don't like this doctrine or I don't like this thing, and you get emotional about it. I mean, we all have a tendency.

We can do that. And we have to check ourselves. Because I'm just going to tell you, before I was a Christian, I didn't like anything about the Bible. I didn't like anything the Bible said that I'm condemned from the womb to the tomb.

I'm condemned already. I'm a sinner in the sight of a holy God. I don't like that. Well, when I get saved, there's all kinds of stuff I don't like that I need to submit to and learn from, and then learn the graciousness of God in it.

That's part of the sanctification process of a believer.

Yeah. And one of the things that you see, if you watch that debate, the saddest part, John, I think you might agree with me. The saddest part in that debate was when there was a point, early on, he mentioned that God would never give us a command that we don't have the ability to do.

Now, one of the things you'll often watch with me as I do debates and things like this is I will try to get things established early on. Because debates, even a discussion, early on, you tend to have more agreement than later.

So get the commitment up front. So I ask lots of questions up front. And when he said that he believes that God cannot give a command that we aren't able to do, I said, okay, that's going to come up much later.

I knew I was going to bring that up later. And so when I did bring that up, I asked him again, does he believe that? He said, yes. And so I gave him the command that's given over and over in Leviticus, be holy as I am holy.

And I said, can you be holy as God is holy? And he said, no, which was good. Unfortunately, and this is the problem some people have, when their system of theology is more important than the scripture, what do they do?

They give up scripture and start reading into scripture something it doesn't say to hold on to their theology. And that's what he did when he goes, well, maybe for a second I can. And I said, can you be holy as God is holy?

And he said, yes, for a second. I said, that's blasphemy.

And that's where exactly is the problem with a lot of non-Calvinists is that they don't realize their unrighteousness. They don't get it. They don't understand just how wicked and sinful they are compared to a holy and righteous and perfect God.

So yeah, it's crazy.

Irresistible truth puts on the comments, just what we were talking about earlier. Get some of the, you know, some of the things that they don't realize that Calvinism wouldn't have been a formal five point had it not been for the five points of the remonstra, the Arminians five points.

That's where the five, the tulip that we call the tulip, that's where it's a response to that. And so the other thing that I saw with it is, you know, when he, for example, we saw the thing where he had the opportunity to realize, OK, there was something wrong with my beliefs.

The underlying argument that God would never give a command that we're not capable of doing. He should have at that point said, OK, there's something wrong with my view. Yeah. At least consider it. But instead, and this is sometimes people can have pride and that pride could be where they will struggle with this.

And to win an argument, they end up saying things that could be blasphemy. And this is how people end up falling into heresy. It's not that they turn into heresy overnight. It's usually because they're arguing a position with someone and they argue too far.

You know, kind of like be righteous, you know, go ahead and spend the rest of your days being righteous. Well, the scripture says that you must be righteous as Christ, as God is righteous. Like you said, be holy.

Both of those things are emphatic. They're a command and a demand that you cannot see God unless you want to see him under judgment and wrath. Unless you're holy as God is holy and unless you're righteous.

And if you can't do that, you've got a problem. Yeah. You've got a major problem. Well, the problem is, the thing is, none of us can because none are good. Not even one. We're dead in trespass and sin.

It doesn't mean that we're physically dead. It means that we are spiritually dead. You know, Ephesians tells us that Ephesians 2 .1. We're dead in trespass. We walk after the course of this world. So we actively walk in a spiritual dead nature.

And then, of course, what he said was something along the lines of, I can choose to choose God or I can choose to choose Christ. And I'm like, but wait a minute. And you brought it out. You said, wait a minute, but you're dead.

And he goes, yes, but I can choose. And then, of course, that's where you where you misunderstand the doctrine of soteriology, the ordo salutis. That's where you misunderstand that God has to take that dead man and make him alive.

That's why Ephesians 2 says who you are, that you walk in the world and then but God. Those two greatest words in the Bible. Yeah. Yeah.

So one of the things that. You know, you'll see me do in a debate like this, and this is helpful to do. You notice that I didn't go to a ton of scripture versus and some people were like thinking of the scripture versus, you know, Justin, you said, John six.

Why didn't you go there? Yeah, there's there's a reason for that. There are people who try to overwhelm someone with, you know, just rattling off scripture versus one that seems impressive. More important, though, in a debate, in my opinion, is to not just mention a whole lot of scripture versus, but to dig into them and explain them.

And in that case, there's only a few that you need. Oh, yeah. And so why did I go to the Philippians one twenty nine? Well, Philippians one twenty nine says four to you. It has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but to also to suffer for his sake.

Now, Seth was arguing that we believe first and then we have faith. And so, you know, when we are doing that, he's putting in a chronological ordering to it. Now, I said I don't think there is a chronological ordering on either side.

I can understand a logical ordering, but that usually leads to chronological. I think they're simultaneous. It is not as monogistic. But this verse here makes it clear that God grants us to believe. OK, which means God did does something first.

Now, why does that become important? He there's one thing he saw in the debate that he did. He turned and says, well, I can get a grant at school and refuse it. Now, that right there is a fallacy because he's trying to take a grant in that word.

And that meaning has no comparison to a grant you get at school for college, like a scholarship. And so there was that's called the fallacy of equivocation. Just because the word is used grant in both ways doesn't mean it has the same meaning.

In fact, and I didn't get into this in the debate, but the word for grant in Philippians 129 is to pardon or forgive just as it has been pardoned for Christ's sake, not only to believe. So the pardon is coming before the belief in that sense.

So that's that's why I bring that verse up.

Was that his argument? Really? I mean, I know he kept saying he kept using that word grant, but that's what I thought. I was like, he he's not applying the same word. Correct. It's who I mean, what we're trying to say is that God grants you the repentance and the faith.

But yet he kept saying, no, I can I can get a grant.

Yeah, I know. And that's where he's doing the fallacy of equivocation. He was using grant two different ways. And so you want to look for fallacies like that. Now, do you have to always point them out?

No. You don't have to. Remember, in a debate, you don't have to point out everything they say that's wrong. It's actually sometimes better not to focus on the majors. Right. And, you know, with with focusing on the majors, we want to make sure that we're not getting lost in the weeds, because that's what sometimes happens when we have discussions.

And if you watched the debate last week, you saw that. What did I keep doing? I kept bringing it back to a few verses. I kept bringing it back to Philippians one twenty nine because this was a major thing he struggled with.

I didn't have to keep going all over the Bible, just keep going back to a couple of passages, stick to a couple of passages and until until they're understood. The problem is we he never got to a point of understanding the passage because he kept reading something in.

And this is something you saw me do over and over again. I literally, for example, read for it has been grant for for to you. It has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe, but also to suffer for his sake.

And he said, well, see, that means that's only for believers because it's in him. Now, the irony there is I said so that those that it's been granted to are only for believers. And he said, yes. I said, welcome to Calvinism.

And he didn't even pick up on that because he's actually arguing Calvinism. He was actually arguing, you know, and didn't even pick up on that.

One thing to point to, though, is in this passage, it's not just saying that it's granted for Christ's sake for you to believe. But the granting is that you believe and it says, but also, yes, but also to suffer for his sake.

So the argument that that is being made to the Philippian church is that God in his kind grace is allowing you to be saved and allowing you to suffer for Christ's sake, for his name.

Yeah. And I brought that up because that's that's the focus of the book of Philippians is on suffering. Exactly. The whole point is, just as God has has given you the suffering, has pardoned you for suffering, he's pardoned you for belief.

And, you know, what's amazing about that, are they going to is he actually going to sit there and say, well, you know, he could say that that here, here, Philippians, God's granting you an offering you the chance to suffer.

And you can just say, oh, no, thanks. No, no, no. I really don't want to. I mean, that's suffering. Yeah, exactly.

And and I think what he doesn't notice is what that ends up doing is putting a it raises man's belief to a higher. I mean, he said point blank, he's synergistic. He believes God works with man to to save a man.

For sure. I mean, that's Catholicism.

Yeah, well, but but think that's where that comes from. You know, that's where that the Arminius, you have in all honesty, you have you have a lot of a lot of history that comes out of the the Roman Catholic Church that fought against the Roman Catholic Church.

But a lot of it that was perfectly aligned with it, you know. And when you think about it, you're you're you're Pelagius Arminius argument is staunchly Roman Catholic, you know. And, you know, I know people get mad about saying that, but it's true.

Well, you it becomes a question of what's the difference there? And, you know, one of the things because we have some people in the backstage, I know one that's going to take a little bit longer. Probably go to Matthew first since he's going to stay on topic.

But no, no. Just because we we have the way everlasting who's going to be it's going to be a totally different topic. Oh, I got you. So I'll stick we'll stick to this topic and he's going to be a little bit longer.

I said to say here she because I don't know. Can't tell by the by the name. So but before we do, you know, I do want to for folks who are regular here, I should I should mention. And he's saying the way everlasting saying he's a he so that's good.

He identifies as a he at least we're not doing that.

We're not doing that. No, no, no.

Folks who are regular know that we have a regular commenter that would do super chats for us. And if folks want to do a super chat, if you're watching on, you know, on YouTube, you can instead of putting a comment, you put the comment with the dollar sign there that donates to striving for eternity.

And in so we guarantee we will read that comment. So because, well, you supported the ministry and we're going to make sure that that's a red. Well, full belly bear is one who's done that very often. And I was talking with him this week and he has a new fallacy for us.

We we always like to give teach you guys on some different fallacies when we can. And there is a fallacy he came up with. And when I thought about this, I think I think it is a legitimate fallacy that we see very often, especially with like politicians.

But he called it we called it the fallacy of amnesia. The fallacy of amnesia. And I don't I in my study of logic, I have not come across this. So he may have an original. The fallacy of amnesia is when you to when you avoid an argument by saying, I don't remember.

You think about, you know, Bill Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky thing. How often could he not remember anything? I mean, his memory was just shot during that thing. Right. Everything was I can't remember.

Were you ever alone? I can't remember. Right. So it's a it was a thing where what you're looking for is a yes, no answer. You're you're asking questions that people should know the answer to. And their response is, I can't remember or I don't know.

I know that response all the time to my kids. Yeah.

Now, if it's if it's Biden, we understand it's it's not actually a fallacy.

It is amnesia. Former Vice President Biden says it all the time.

Yeah. No, I mean, that is one of the thing. Now, this is different than saying I don't know to avoid. This is to the claim of this is a case when you have something that you should know, something that happens to you.

Something that is, you know, it's on you experienced, but you say, I don't know, to avoid answering. Typically, I think people are going to do that because, well, you know, to say yes or no gets them in trouble.

So. So our new fallacy for this week is the fallacy of amnesia, thanks to full belly bear. I don't see commenting. Otherwise we you know, he'd probably be saying, yep, that was me. So before we before we put John in in the in the backstage, John, typically you tend to get in your relaxed position before, you know, when we see we get to see you, Pastor Justin and I, when you're backstage and we usually see you get into your relaxed position.

You're doing usually one of two things. Oh, full belly. There he is. You say his name three times and he appears. I refuse to do a super chat, but he gives a five dollar super chat. I think that's called a contradiction.

He is great. He is a sharp, sharp guy. You got to be on your toes with him. But he's he's always thinking so. So, John, the thing we always notice with you is you're in a very relaxed state. Usually we see you with you leaning back in your chair and your eyes are closed and you look like you're comfortable whenever we bring you up on on camera.

You seem to wake up very quickly, which leads me to believe that it's possible that you're just not getting a good enough sleep during the show. And I think the reason why I could be wrong, I think the reason why is because you need to get yourself on my pillow.

What I think you need to do is take advantage of the sale that they're running right now. They're running a sale right now to get a queen size premium my pillow for only twenty nine ninety eight. That's forty dollars off.

So I really think you should consider getting one so that you can sleep through the whole show next time. And I'm going to tell you how you do it, John. What you do is call 1 -800 -873 -0176. And when you call them, use promo code SFE for striving for return.

Not only, John, will you get a great night's sleep during the show, but you'll be supporting striving for eternity at the same time. Now, another option you have if you don't want to call 1 -800 -873 -0176.

You can go to mypillow .com, click on the radio listener square and then use promo code SFE to get not only a pillow, but in your case, John, maybe when you're out there with your chickens, you can get yourself a nice robe, you know, or you can get their pillow.

They have a mattress topper and some bed sheets and all kinds of things. You can get great discounts at MyPillow, who is sponsoring this show, sponsors both the Apologetics Live and my Wrap Report show.

And you can get discounts there using promo code SFE. The numbers there on the screen, 1 -800 -873 -0176. So if you want to help support us and get a better night's sleep, call them. And as folks watching can see, John is already out for the night, so we're going to put him backstage.

I was going to say the other thing he's usually doing is reading my What Do They Believe book, which he seems to read a lot. I'm going to bring Matthew in because he said he wanted to talk a little bit more with the topic we were on with Calvinism.

So, Matthew, welcome to Apologetics Live. Thanks for bringing me in. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. I think this is your first time coming in.

Well, I've been on before, but not necessarily with all the fancy equipment. For a bit of background, on Twitter, I saw some different posts from a specific user talking about free will theology and whatnot.

And I heard James White of The Dividing Line interacting with him. I heard a couple of shows in which James White discussed it, discussing a debate between this gentleman Warren McGrew and Matt Slick at the end of last year.

I listened to that, and I thought it was a very, very interesting debate considering Warren McGrew's position. And then I recently listened to a very recent interview of Warren McGrew in which he was discussing the history of Augustine and Plagianism and Calvinism in general.

And his whole idea is getting back to a pre-Augustinian orthodoxy is what he called it, a big emphasis on free will, which I take to mean libertarian free will based on his descriptions. But anyway, what he suggested is that Augustine, even after becoming a Christian, was still extremely inspired by Platonism.

I should have forgot what the other things Augustine was into before he became a Christian. I'm sorry. With all these things, when he started writing his works, and Warren's argument was that Plagius was the orthodox Christian coming to refute Augustine in his claims.

And he argues historically, the way things went down, it wasn't the a church sided with Plagius according to what he was saying in this interview. And then eventually it was one of the political leaders that declared Augustine the winner of the argument because he got tired of all the drama.

Therefore, Augustinianism is false and anything that followed thereafter.

Well, there's some validity to the fact that Augustine in his early writings is not the same Augustine in his later writings. In fact, one of the things Augustine did later in his life was to rewrite all his older works and edit all his older works because he couldn't stand the thought of having his bad teaching out there.

So there was some of that with Augustine. However, the fact of trying to say that when you look at what they were debating and you compare it to scripture, Plagius trying to defend an argument. And what happens let me explain the history of heresy, how people become heretics because it's helpful to know what happens.

And you'll see this in a whole lot of different things. You'll see it with a guy maybe like Plagius or you're going to see it with people that believe in flat earth. You see it in a whole lot of different doctrines where someone grabs onto one thing and what ends up happening is that they start to defend it, whatever it is.

And it might be a light defense at first. But when debating, if someone's pride is getting in the way, what happens with the pride is we are going to be right till the last thing we do. When people start arguing out of pride, they start to make arguments that even if they're invalid, they don't care.

Even if it's unbiblical, they don't care. They will justify it. Now every system, every system, I don't care what system you look at Jehovah Witnesses, Islam, Mormonism, Catholicism, any system they are going to have answers to the questions.

They're going to be a well-argued system. And so the reason I point that out is people think like, well, if they don't hold to this, they're going to be just crazy. And no, flat earth might seem crazy to us.

But to them, it makes sense. To them, it's a well-organized system. And that becomes the thing that is kind of where people start to see that, well, here's answers here. And the more they study to debate someone on a topic, the more they get grounded in well, this has answers.

This has answers. Let me give you a for instance. I had a Jewish person who contacted the ministry, knew that I was from a Jewish background, wanted to try to convert me back to Judaism. His argument was that only the rabbis have answers.

Okay? And the thing that we ended up seeing is that he argued that the rabbis have the only answer to King David. Now, the argument with King David that they made was that King David was actually he couldn't have committed adultery because he was this godly man.

He was a man after God's own heart. And so how can you have this man after God's own heart commit adultery and murder that can't have happened? Now, we would say yes, it can because he's a human being.

Okay? Not very hard to understand. What the rabbis will come up with a system to answer this is that, well, what David did when he had Uriah and Uriah when Uriah left to go to war, he gave his wife a temporary divorce.

Not a permanent divorce, but or most of the men would give a temporary divorce saying, hey, if I don't come back, if you don't hear from me, you're free to marry. But what Uriah did was a permanent divorce.

And that's why Uriah wouldn't go back to his house. And so, you know, this was so she was a free woman to marry. David just married her. And you go, well, why did he have him killed? Oh, because he called him a lord.

That was blasphemy. Well, that wasn't the same lord in the Old Testament that we would use for blasphemy. Right? So you see that they get a system, and they develop a problem. They work a solution, and it looks like they got a great answer.

And this Jewish guy was thoroughly convinced there were no other answers. And to me, the easy answer was David was a sinner. Right? So we do have to understand that. Now, this is the thing that I'm pointing out just so we understand that there are these issues.

When we look at Pelagius, Pelagius ended up denying what we call the doctrine of the sin nature. Okay? Romans 5, 12 and following makes that clear. But he just went so far in trying to defend human will that what ended up happening to the point where he denied that we have a sin nature.