Slick vs Flowers, Depravity and Human ability

Opening Banter and Technical Setup

All right, everybody. Welcome. It is the 17th of October. We've got Leighton in the room. We have a friend of mine, Charlie. He's going to be here just to watch if anybody else somehow comes in. We had a problem last night.

If anybody comes in, he'll just tackle them. You guys can see that. Not a big deal. Okay, good. Getting the good. Okay. So the audio is working. Everything is working. I just did a feedback on the link.

Everything is great. So last night what happened, I think it was the heresy that he was speaking so much just broke.

The YouTube account. That's the only thing I think of. I think God predestined it so that He definitely predestined it. So that he only would y 'all would only hear the truth being.

Spoken. Ah, there you go. Good comeback. Good comeback. So at any rate, all of YouTube was down last night, all of it. Apparently it just crashed. Well, that's what happens either way. So here we are again, round two, I guess you could say.

So what's going to happen is we'll pray and then someone said don't break YouTube again. We'll just pray and then Leighton's just going to jump in and go. Then I'll just jump in and I'm going to react to what he says and we'll just see.

What happens. Yeah, and those that did watch my opener yesterday, it'll be some of the same, but I did go through at the end some different verses just for your sake because I saw about a thousand people did watch the part of it at least.

So I'll try not to bore you too much with the exact same opener. I'll change it a little bit for you. Bore them. Make them bored. I don't care. All right. I prayed last time. You want to pray this time?

Sure. Let's go, Lord. Father, we do thank you for the time that we have to open your truth. And Father, we pray that you will help us to understand each other, help us to be cordial and loving, to give a spirit of brotherly love towards one another, though we disagree with each other on this particular issue.

Help us to model what it means to show true, genuine, loving kindness towards one another. One thing we do know your word does say is that you will know us by our fruit and how we love each other. It doesn't say you will know us by all the doctrinal checkpoints that we have, but that you will know us by our love.

And so I pray that we do display love and true brotherly kindness to one another as we discuss your truth in firm conviction and according to your scripture. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. I guess you're just going to go, right?

Absolutely. Let's go. In the concluding words of our scripture in Revelation 22, it's written, the spirit and the bride say, come and let the one who hears say, come, let the one who is thirsty come and let the one who wishes to take of the free gift of the water of life.

Notice the phrase, let the one who wishes, some translations say, let the one who wills take the free gift. But Calvinistic doctrine of total inability teach that all people since the fall are born unable to wish or to will to take this gift.

But where does the Bible teach this? I hope we can unpack that a little bit this evening. Now to begin, let's be very clear about our disagreement, what we're talking about tonight. We are not disagreeing over the issue of man's depravity or his sinfulness.

We all agree that mankind is sinful and in need of a savior. Our disagreement with Calvinist is specifically over this idea of what's called total inability, which is the idea that because of the sin of Adam, all people are born in a fallen condition where they can only hate and reject God.

And even if God makes his appeal to be reconciled from that fall, you're born by his decree, mind you, unable to willingly to want to accept that appeal. So let me just say something to my Calvinistic friends.

When we disagree with you about your doctrine of total inability, we are not saying that humanity is without sin. We're not saying that they can save themselves, nor are we teaching that everyone deserves salvation.

We are arguing to preserve what we sincerely believe the clearly teaches about human responsibility and God's character, as well as his love and his provision for every man, woman, boy, and girl. We are not denying humanity's bondage to sin.

Please hear that. We believe mankind are in bondage to sin. But instead, what we're simply saying is that those who are in bondage are still responsible to humbly confess their bondage and put their trust in the only one who can free them.

And by responsibility, by the way, we mean one's ability to respond in faith to inspired truth that was sent to help set people free. We understand no one seeks God on their own, but we simply do not believe that God has left anyone on their own, nor do we believe the inability to initiate our reconciliation with God entails an inability to respond willingly to God's gracious initiative.

We agree that no one is righteous, not even one, as it pertains to the law, but we simply do not believe that entails an inability to confess that fact and put trust in the righteousness of Christ so as to be saved by grace that he offers to all people through the appeal of the gospel.

I think we can all agree that God holds fallen humanity responsible for the how they reply to his very words. Jesus even said so in John 12, 47 and 48, if anyone hears my words, but does not keep them, I do not judge that person for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

There is a judge for the one who rejects me, does not accept my words. The very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2, 10, that those who perish, quote, perish because they refuse to love the truth so as to be saved, end quote.

Again, I think we all can agree that fallen sinners are held responsible for what they do with the words of God, with the gospel. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to suggest that fallen sinners are able to respond to the gospel by either humbling themselves and accepting it as truth or suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

Calvinism's doctrine of total inability teaches, however, that fallen sinners are born by God's decree. Remember, they're born in such a condition that they cannot respond positively to God's own appeals to be reconciled from that fallen condition.

Let's just think about this. If I tell my child that he should clean his room, it does strongly imply that he could clean his room. That's basic common sense, I think, that we'd all understand. But is that applicable to how God deals with all of humanity?

Is the implication in scripture of you should, does that always mean you could? Well, let me give an answer to that by way of analogy. Suppose you had a horrible gambling addiction and as a result, you accrued a debt so large that it was literally impossible for you to repay within your lifetime.

Would your inability to pay off this debt excuse you from paying it? Of course not. You should pay off your debt regardless of whether you could pay off this debt. This is an example, I think, of where inability does not necessarily remove responsibility and should does not necessarily mean could.

Likewise, the scriptures teach us that we should obey the law of God perfectly, Matthew 5, 48, for example. But it also teaches us that no one could from Romans 3 and Romans 8 and other places. Our moral inability to fulfill all the demands of the law does not remove our moral responsibility to that law.

We have a debt that we cannot pay, yet scripture seems to teach that we are held accountable for that debt nonetheless. In this instance, it certainly does seem that should does not imply could. But continuing with analogy above, suppose your wealthy and benevolent father offered to pay your gambling debt if and only if you would confess your addiction and check into a rehab facility for gamblers.

Clearly, this is something you should do. But here's the question. Could you do that? Well, of course you could. Your inability to pay off the debt in no way hinders you from accepting the benevolent offer, a well-meant offer of your father's provision.

Likewise, with regard to the law, your benevolent and gracious father offers to pay your sin debt if you confess your sin addiction and you trust in him. Clearly, this is something you should do. But could you?

I believe you could. Calvinist doctrine of total inability says you could not. Your inability to pay off your sin debt in no way, however, hinders you from accepting the benevolent offer of your father's gracious provision.

Suppose someone tried to convince you that one's inability to pay off their huge gambling debt equaled an inability to accept the help of the father when it's offered. Would you believe them? I ask you that because that is ultimately what our Calvinistic friends like Matt Slick are attempting to get the church to believe about God's benevolent offer of salvation.

Now, catch this. Calvinists believe we are born unable to want to accept God's appeals and his provision because he decreed, he decided this, not us. He decided for us to be born unable to want that. Our wanter is born broken, as R .C. Sproul puts it, because God decreed for everybody's wanter to be broken once the fall happened.

We are born in this condition by God's decree, yet he holds all people responsible with an eternity in hell for something in which they had absolutely no control over, their denial and the rejection of even the words of Christ calling them to repentance and faith and reconciliation.

By even some Calvinistic scholars on admission, this seems dreadful to suggest that God holds humanity responsible for that which he himself is decisively controlling. John Calvin himself called it a dreadful decree.

On Matt Slick's website, CARM, he has a page where he lists all the passages that he feels support this doctrine of total inability, and I want to briefly address some of them. I did some of them in the first try at this, but I'm going to try to do some different ones in this one just because I want you all to hear more of the verses that we could go through.

Genesis 6 -5 is one that we went over. It says, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. But the scripture goes on to say, I think we need to see it in the context, it goes on to say the Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled, so the Lord said, I will wipe from the face of the earth the entire human race that I've created.

And verse 8, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Now, you can argue that Noah found favor because God irresistibly made Noah and his family favorable by some supernatural effectual means, but the text certainly doesn't say this.

Plus, that interpretation would make the text seem quite unreasonable because then why would God express frustration for the wickedness of the entire creation when apparently he could have just as easily made the human race favorable, or at least a portion of the human race favorable by some supernatural irresistible means in the same way that he supposedly made Noah and his family favorable.

Again, it just, I think, falls apart on itself when you begin to examine scriptures like this. Genesis 8, 21, the Lord said to himself, I will never again accursed the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth.

Now, this is where I think guys like Matt, though well-intending, this is somewhat of a conflation of Calvinists. What they do is they list verses which establish that mankind is sinful, but they list those verses about their sinfulness as if they also establish man's inability to humbly confess their sinfulness.

Many of the verses in Matt's list rely upon this conflation in order to support this concept of total inability, because on their own, they don't support the concept of total inability. Jeremiah 7, 9 is another good example in this list.

The heart is more deceitful than all else. It's desperately sick. Who can understand it? Well, again, how does proof of the heart's illness prove a person's moral incapacity to confess that fact and humbly throw himself at the mercy of the great physician who offers to bring healing to his heart's condition?

Again, this is conflating two distinct issues that I hope that you see tonight. There's the distinct issues of man's sinfulness, where we agree, and the inability of man to confess their sinful condition in light of God's revelation through the law and the gospel.

Matt continues to rely upon this conflation in many of these proof texts. Many of them I went over in the first discussion, but let me skip ahead to some of the other ones. Romans 3, 10 through 12 is one of the most popular ones that Calvinists will go to, where it says no one's righteous, not even one.

But we have to understand that earlier in chapter 1 of Romans, Paul said that the righteous live by faith in verse 17. And in the next chapter, in chapter 4, after chapter 3, after he's declared no one's righteous, no not one, quoting from the psalmist, he says that Abraham was believed and it was credited to him as righteous.

In other words, you've got Enoch that was righteous, Job was righteous, according to scripture, you've got all these people who are called righteous, but then you've got chapter 3 saying no one's righteous, no not one.

Was there a contradiction in scripture? None of us believe that there's a contradiction, obviously. What is being argued here is that no one can attain their own righteousness by means of the law, because we all fall short.

We all have broken the rules of God. We've all fallen short. So our only hope is to trust in the righteousness of somebody else. See, the Calvinistic logic, it goes something like this for Romans 1 through 3.

They're ultimately saying something like, well, one, believing in Christ, it's righteous, it's good. You'll often hear them say, is it good to believe in Christ? Is it good to trust in Christ? Because they believe believing in Christ is righteous and good.

And since no one's righteous or good, that must therefore mean that no one can believe in Christ. Well, that's a non-sequitur and it's certainly not what Paul is saying in these chapters. What Paul is saying is only those who believe are credited as righteous and no one merits their own righteousness by means of the law.

Therefore, your only hope is to do what Abraham did and believe in the righteousness of God so that you will be credited with the righteousness of someone else, because you can't merit yourself through the law.

That's the intention of Paul. He also lists Romans 8 .7, another popular verse, because the mind is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.

Again, I have to ask, how does our inability to fulfill the law's demands equal an inability to confess that fact and trust in the one who did? The reason we call it good news is because he has provided a way in which we can attain righteousness through faith.

That's why it's good and it's good news for all people. First Corinthians 2 .14, another very popular passage to prove or to hold up this concept of total inability, but you have to look at the context, I believe.

The verse says, but the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. He cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. Now, if one simply backs up and reads the context by going back up to, let's say, verse 6, I think you can go to the first chapter too, but go back up to verse 6 and you'll see that the things, quote, the things to which Paul is referring to are, quote, the hidden mysteries that are just now being revealed through people like Paul, through his apostles, through inspired holy men.

He also, in verse 10, speaks of the deep things only known in the mind of God. That's according to verse 10. Or if you go on to the next verses, it talks about the meat rather than the milk of the word as those who are, as the things that he's referring to.

So this is clearly not talking about an inability of lost people to understand the plain and simple gospel appeal to be reconciled to God. If it were, then why did Paul go on in the very next verses to talk to the brethren, the brethren, the believers in Corinth and say they could not accept these same things either due to their own carnality?

Again, when you study the context, it just simply falls apart. This concept of total inability is just not found in these texts. Ephesians 2 .1 is another very popular verse. You were dead in your trespasses and sins.

Now, in the first century, calling someone dead was idiomatic for concept of separation due to rebellion. It was not ever meant, and I would challenge our Calvinists to find any time where the concept of the word dead, spiritual deadness, means or connotes this concept or idea of moral incapacity to respond to God's life-giving truth.

It's just not there. We're dead like the prodigal son whose father said he was lost, but now he's found. He's dead, but now he's alive. That means we're separated due to rebellion. Does not mean you're morally incapable of humbly admitting your mistakes and returning home out of your pigsty.

Paul also says, by the way, Christians are dead to sin. Does that mean you're morally incapable of choosing to sin? Well, of course not. It means you're to separate yourself from sin, just like we were once separated from God by our sin.

Lastly, probably the most popular verse of all is John 6 .44. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. But you have to understand that Jesus goes on to say just a few chapters later, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Okay, so this is a point that has to be under rightly understood to understand passages like this. While Jesus was down from heaven, his desire was not to draw all people to himself. Did you hear that?

When he was down from heaven, his desire was not to draw all people to himself. In fact, many times we see Jesus saying to his followers, don't tell anybody who I am yet. Matthew 16 .20, for example, or Mark 9 .9.

Why would this be? Doesn't Jesus want everybody to be saved? Isn't that what we believe? Why in the world, if this is the case, would he want, why would he go tell everybody? Absolutely go tell everybody.

The reason is, is because Jesus is accomplishing redemption while down from heaven. He has to be crucified, and if they knew who the Lord of glory was, they would have never crucified him, as he says in 1 Corinthians 2, verses 6 and 7.

So he speaks parabolically so that those on the outside do not understand and believe. He is purposefully hiding his identity so as to make sure redemption is accomplished through the crucifixion, and it's only after he's raised up that he sends the gospel to draw all people to himself.

And once somebody understands that, the context of verses like Romans 6 and others, where he speaks very parabolically about eating his flesh and drinking his blood and doesn't really try to explain himself very clearly, and everybody leaves except for his apostles, it gives us an understanding of what Jesus is accomplishing by saying, there are some who listen and learn from the Father.

Those are the ones who have been given to me, and those are the ones who will believe in the Son. And so I think that's the context of passages like John 6, and I've gone over my time, so I've gone 16 minutes, so feel free to take 16 minutes there, Matt, for your response.

Yeah, I didn't care. You can keep going if you want, doesn't bother me. That's all right. For the sake of everyone listening, I will stop at our set on time there. All right, well, I appreciate what you had to say, and.

You went over a lot of verses very quickly, and it's difficult to address each verse at 80 miles an hour. Yes, it is. And then, you know, I can quote from memory, you know, 15 verses to support something really quickly, all in 30 seconds.

It's not going to, it really doesn't accomplish anything. We need to examine things in context one at a time. And, you know, you brought up things, and I could respond. Maybe we'll just have a conversation over a few of the verses.

I've got some very basic questions I want to ask later on. But, you know, you opened up with Revelation 22, 17. The Spirit and the bride say, come, let go. In fact, I don't even know what my time frame is.

It's 23, so 15, 38. Okay. Let him who hears come, and let who's thirsty, you know, drink, and let the one who wishes take water of life. And you said, see, it implies, well, you haven't said it, but libertarian free will.

But the verse does not say how they were able to arrive at that condition of being able to desire or wish it. And plus, the context is of those who are already in heaven. You know, you can, people do this.

They will throw verses out very quickly. Say, see, it means that they can believe, like John 3, 16, which he didn't bring up. But John 3, 16, God loves the world, whoever believes. Well, that means everybody can believe.

No, not necessarily, you know. And it doesn't say how they come to believe either. God grants that they believe because he does. Philippians 1, 29, and he works belief in them. John 6, 28, 29, he grants repentance.

Second Timothy 2, 25. See, I can whip those out too quickly. I mean, not too quickly, but quickly also. And we might want to, you know, pause and look at one or two and see how they work. You know, Leighton, you went to John 6, 44.

When you come to me, you can't come to me unless a father who sent me draws him, and I'll raise him up on the last day. You know, the contention of those of us in the reformed camp is that those who are born in sin are enslaved to sin.

Romans 6, 14 through 20 talks about this. They're dead in their sins, Ephesians 2, 1. They're by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2, 3. And again, I'm not trying to whip out 8 ,000 verses. It's just, you know, we can discuss things.

I'm trying to be polite and be slow for everybody. But, you know, so we have these reasons why we say these things, and they're worth examining those scriptures. And if someone just has the ability to believe on their own by hearing the gospel, hearing something, it's just something in them that enables them, which is a question you need to tackle.

Okay, just my speech program just kicked into something. Please be patient. It just wigged out. There we go. There we go. Okay, turn it off. It's wigging out. Sorry about that. Okay, good. Wow. My bad.

Making sure it's off. So it says no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. If it's up to people's free will, then why was it Jesus said you can't come to me unless the Father draws him?

If it's the natural ability of a person to be able to come to God on his own free will, even within his sinfulness, then why does Jesus say you cannot? No one can do this unless the Father draws him. And what you did, Leighton, you went straight to John 12, 32.

If I believe in the earth, I'll draw men to myself. The all men has to do with all people groups because Jesus said in Matthew 15, 24, he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He wasn't sent to the whole world.

He was only sent to Israel and then Israel rejected him. And then covenantally, the covenant was broken and we, the Gentiles are grafted in. And then that's why we Gentiles can be saved. But he says, no one can come to me unless the Father sent him draws.

That's a limitation. He says, you can't do it unless the Father draws you. And he goes on in John 6, 65. He says, no one can come to me unless it's been granted to him from the Father. Nobody can. Well, this is important.

Nobody can come to Jesus unless the Father granted to him. If it's up to people's free will, once they've heard the gospel, heard a message, whatever it might be, then they should just be able to come to God on their own.

But it would not be necessary for Jesus to say that no one can come to him unless it's granted to him from the Father. Now, this is the kind of verses that we Reform people will look at and say, we believe that no one could come to Christ unless it's granted to them by the Father, which means that your free will doesn't allow you to come to Christ because no one can do it unless the Father grants it to you.

Now I go to 1 Corinthians 12, 3, where Paul says, no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. This is another restriction on the nature of the uninformed, the unbeliever. The Holy Spirit indwells the believers.

We know that. Well, if they don't have the Spirit, they're not going to say Jesus is Lord. They can't do it. It says no one can say Jesus is Lord. Now we know they can utter the syllables, but we know what this means is the confession of it.

They can't do that unless the Holy Spirit is there. Now, are we going to say upon them or within them? And that's another discussion. You know, I can go to, there's lots of verses I could go to. Here's one, John 8, 43 through 44.

Jesus says to the Pharisees, you cannot hear my word because you're of your father, the devil. Now there's a restriction in that they cannot do this because they are the father of the devil. This means they're unregenerate.

They're haters of God. They're haters of Christ. And because of this, they're not able to do what they're supposed to be able to do. They have a restriction on them because of their nature, because of their essence.

Romans 8, 8, he went through that a little bit, but the context is about those who are according to the flesh. In verse five, this is really important. Those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

So we have the fleshly people, we have the godly people, the unbelievers and the saved. And in their condition of non-regeneration, they cannot please God. They cannot. It's not possible. This is because it's their nature.

And because of this, this is why we have verses in the Bible that say things like, God grants that we believe, Philippians 1, 29. If it's true that free will means the person can just hear the gospel and they're able to make a decision, then why does God have to grant that they believe?

And it's not grant the opportunity to believe for this, not what it says. It says grant that they believe. It's the believing that he grants to them, not the opportunity to. And to say anything other than that would be to read another text.

He grants repentance, 2 Timothy 2, 25. He causes people to be born again, 1 Peter 1, 3. I'll say this slowly if anybody wants to write them down. He grants that people come to Christ, already went over that, John 6, 65, and we're born again, not of our own will, John 1, 13.

It's not far off from the reformed perspective to say, look, we hold to the idea of man's sinfulness. He's a slave of sin, a hater of God, can do no good, dead in his sins. And this is why, because of these, God has to elect them and choose them and predestine them, Ephesians 1, 4, and 5.

This is why he has to grant that they believe. This is why he has to appoint them to eternal life, Acts 13, 48, which says as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. We can see that God grants that people believe and he works faith in them.

They said to Jesus, what must we do to work the works of God? And Jesus says, this is the work of God that you believe on whom he has sent. Now I can go into lots of verses about God moving the heart and will, we'll get into that later.

1 Corinthians 2, 14, we could discuss that I'm sure for a half hour, maybe carnal Christian understanding, a bachelor in understanding and things like that. If they, if a person is carnally, in a carnal mind, a Christian who's in a carnal state, it says he cannot understand the things of God, cannot, he cannot receive them.

An unbeliever, excuse me, a Christian who's bachelor and certainly understands as he's a sinner, certainly acknowledges he's a sinner, certainly acknowledges the issues of who Christ is and his deity and resurrection.

Otherwise he wouldn't be a Christian. He's a backslidden Christian. He's in the flesh. And so this wouldn't apply to him. He cannot do this. It's foolishness to him. He cannot understand them. That's not the words of a backslidden individual.

It's not describing someone backslidden. It's to someone who's unregenerate, who is according to the flesh. Now we could discuss that quite a bit. Let's see. We're going to go to my notes a little. He agrees that people, you agree that people are touched by sin and under bondage.

That's good. Welcome to Reform Theology. I'm glad you affirm that. And I got a quote from last night, but I don't need to go into that right now. Let's see, human response. Let's go through my notes, okay, because you went through so many things quickly that I just kind of wrote some things around.

What I believe that Leighton does is beg the question. He presupposes the validity of libertarian free will and a kind of an autonomous freedom, which we need to discuss. During free will, there's different definitions of it, but basically it means that an individual, basically, an individual is not so constrained by his sinful nature that he's not able to choose both good and bad.

Now that's not exactly accurate, but it's pretty good for a basic level. Calvinists look at the scriptures and we interpret free will in light of God's word. We don't presuppose libertarian free will and then interpret God's word in light of it.

We don't do that. And that's something I don't do. Now, I will confess, maybe I do it involuntarily. Maybe I do it subconsciously, but it's never an intention to do anything like that. I wouldn't accuse Leighton of purposely doing something like that.

He's not an evil guy, but we have our presuppositions and our assumptions that we work from and through. Now, he said, I make a comment here. We discussed this last week. God offers to pay your sin debt if you confess Christ.

That is flat out, blatantly wrong. We went over that last week. Colossians 2 .14 clearly says a sin that is canceled at the cross, not when you confess. And that's just wrong. We went over that last week and there's verses we can talk about that.

But he says that we are born in the condition of inability by the decree of God. Now we had to discuss what the issue of the decree of God is. Does Leighton mean, it's a question worth asking, does Leighton mean that a decree of God is direct causation in that God is forcing someone?

Because if he's forcing someone to do something that is against their free will, he wouldn't hold them accountable for moral responsibility. What is meant by the issue of decree? And when we talk about decree, particularly in the reference of reform theology, we have to understand what the term means.

Now there's, it can be direct and an indirect decree and God can certainly cause things to happen by his direct hand. Let there be light, bang, there's light. But he can also work circumstances so that certain people do what he wants them to do.