Is James White a Hyper-Calvinist? A Response to Dr. David Allen

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A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the word of God. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

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And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my... He died for...

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For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.

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His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth is not his equal.

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I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves

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Calvinists. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.

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But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever...

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Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

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Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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You ask who that may be, Christ Jesus it is he.

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I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism. It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist.

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Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism. Lord Sabaoth his name.

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Read my book. From age to age the same. And he must win the battle.

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And now, from our underground bunker deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.

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Well, I've got big news for you today on Radio Free Geneva. We have identified an entire group of Pelagians hiding right in the midst of us.

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Yes, folks, today on the program we are going to expose these hidden Pelagians.

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Yes, they've snuck in amongst us and so we need to identify the hidden Pelagians.

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What do I mean? Well, you know, Pelagianism as a theological perspective has a number of indicators because any theological movement is a complex of beliefs.

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There are different doctrines that are related to one another. And so Pelagius, the

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British monk, he had certain teachings, but Pelagianism, which comes from him, is a complex of beliefs primarily focused upon the idea that man is capable in and of himself.

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Every man that is born is a new Adam. That there is no original sin, there is no federal headship of Adam, and that grace is not necessary for achieving salvation.

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Now, since there are indicators that you might be a Pelagian or even a semi -Pelagian, we have discovered that there is an entire group of Southern Baptists who have one of the indicators of Pelagianism and they've published about it.

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They've even been open about it. They have. This traditionalist statement that was put out a couple years ago very clearly denies the federal headship of Adam in regards to the doctrine of original sin, just like Pelagius did.

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In fact, when you look at Pelagius' interpretation of Romans 5, verse 12, it sounds a lot like what these

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Southern Baptists are saying. And Dr. David Allen of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary signed the traditionalist statement.

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So, he has one indicator, he agrees with Pelagius on one thing, and that therefore means he's a

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Pelagian. We have a Pelagian in charge of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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There you go. I hope everybody acts immediately. This needs to be brought to the attention of the leadership.

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Well, the leadership might be Pelagian too. Brought to the attention of the leadership. Needs to be taken care of, right?

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Now, hopefully, hopefully everyone, everyone's sitting there going, no, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

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There's something wrong in your argumentation. And there was. And there is.

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That would be foolish argumentation. Now, everything I said was true. There are indicators.

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They do share that, an important central aspect in regards to Romans 5, 12, and how to interpret it, and what it's not saying, and all that stuff is true.

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But where's the problem then? It's pretty simple. Let me defend Dr. Allen, because in the rest of the program,

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I'm going to be refuting Dr. Allen and his long -term cavil and falsehood against me, which he has refused to accept correction on over and over again, and I don't think he's going to accept correction even now, no matter how clearly and fully

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I refute it. What I am going to demonstrate is that if he continues to lie about me, because it is a lie, if he continues to lie about me, he will do so by using the argumentation

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I just used to prove he's a Pelagian. It's that simple. What I mean by that is this.

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Dr. Allen would say, I'm not a Pelagian. Look at all the things that I affirm that Pelagius would not.

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Look at my preaching. Look at my teaching. Look at my emphasis upon grace, the necessity of grace here, the necessity of grace there.

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I disagree with Pelagius here. I disagree with Pelagius there. I don't preach like Pelagius on these topics.

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I mean, a simple area of agreement, I mean, for crying out loud, that would mean everyone's a

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Roman Catholic if you agree with Roman Catholicism and believe in the Trinity, right? I mean, that's silly. Exactly.

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And he would be exactly right. You do not identify someone's theological position based upon a single marker that someone has identified as, this might mean you're a

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Pelagian, or this might mean you're a Hyper -Calvinist. And then ignore everything else.

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Ignore everything they've written, everything they've preached, everything they do. You don't do that.

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That's wrong. It's muddleheaded. And we all recognize it. And so anybody who would make the argument that, well, hey, there you go, you agree with Pelagius on that, therefore you're a

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Pelagian, would be arguing in a way that is utterly unworthy of meaningful

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Christian scholarship. That is why Dr. Allen must withdraw the lengthy footnote.

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I think it's the lengthiest footnote in the book. I mean, you tell me. You probably can't see it there, but starting here,

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I mean, you've got two footnotes here going, that's a page and a half of just footnotes in tiny, tiny font.

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Has to withdraw the footnote, which I don't, I'll be perfectly honest with you,

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I think I know what the source of that footnote was. It's someone with initials

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TB. But he needs to withdraw the false accusation that I am a hyper -Calvinist.

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KUPA Calvinists, which are low or under -Calvin Calvinists, will accuse anyone above them of being a hyper -Calvinist.

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What then are we talking about here? Well, we've got to have some definitions. And that's the problem.

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Someone in Twitter, just before I came on the air, was quoting a statement made in a

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Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary class today.

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Today. And here's what was stated. If you believe in TULIP, you are a hyper.

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And limited atonement is the heart of heresy. Okay? So, today, for many anti -Calvinists, if you believe what the

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Synod of Dort taught in its final statement, then you're a hyper -Calvinist.

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Well, that of course makes the term irrelevant and meaningless. All that means is you're a

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Calvinist. You know, it's like Norman Geist was saying, extreme Calvinist. By redefining moderate

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Calvinist as an Arminian, now you've got extreme Calvinist. I mean, you're just playing games with words, and you're not helping anyone.

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You're showing disrespect to history. You're showing disrespect to your audience, too. Because by changing the meaning of words, and they can't go back and read earlier authors and follow the argument and see where you stand and examine your position in a meaningful fashion.

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That was one of the real problems I had with Geister's work. Who do you think you are?

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Are you really smarter than all these other people? That was a problem. Anyway, so today, you have all sorts of anti -Calvinists saying, if you believe in limited atonement, you're a hyper -Calvinist.

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And they just use the term hyper -Calvinist as a... Well, the same way people...

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You're a homophobe. You're a bigot. You're discriminating. It's an accusation meant to shut down conversation and serious thought.

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And it only works with people who are low -information voters, as certain popular talk show hosts would put it.

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Low -information voters, or in this case, low -information church members. For low -information church members, that works pretty good.

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Oh, hyper -Calvinists. Don't want to be one of them. Don't have any idea what that is, but don't want to be any of them. The fact of the matter is, they don't like Calvin.

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And would probably call Calvin a hyper -Calvinist. William Lane Craig did. He couldn't figure out the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism either.

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But there's all sorts of stuff. And I hopefully will get around to reading a few things here.

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In the Institutes of the Christian Religion, that's... Obviously, a large majority of people today would identify as hyper -Calvinism that comes straight from the words of Calvin.

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So, very few people have any idea what hyper -Calvinism actually means.

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And the problem is that, like I said, you'll have some people who will accept some elements of God's freedom and salvation, but not all.

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They're inconsistent themselves. And then if someone accepts all of it, well, you're a hyper -Calvinist. And so, that fellow

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I mentioned before, TB, actually, back around 2008, as I recall, when

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Dr. Allen first made this false accusation against me, and he refuted it then.

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He evidently hasn't taken the time to look up our refutations, indicated that he needed to see these refutations, so that's why we're providing one.

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Some of you will remember, I was in London doing evangelistic work to Muslims while I was being accused of being hyper -Calvinist.

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Fundamental to hyper -Calvinism is the lack of meaningful evangelistic work. We'll talk about that in a moment.

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So, it was rather ironic, and I even took time while I was over there to record responses during the course of the

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John 3 .16 conference to demonstrate the silliness of this.

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But, again, the point was, how do you define what hyper -Calvinism is?

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Is there an official definition? And the fact is, there isn't. Are there hyper -Calvinists today?

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Sure, there are. Hyper -Calvinism has been much more popular in the past, but just as there is a range, you can talk about low -Calvinists and high -Calvinists, you can talk about infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism, not superlapsarianism, even there, there are other ways of expressing the order of decrees and relationship between them in infra - and supralapsarian positions.

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And so, you've got a spectrum, and somewhere over here you've got the hyper -Calvinists, but exactly where that line is to be drawn is sometimes difficult to determine.

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But there are certain things that will help us to understand what a hyper -Calvinist is.

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As I was saying, I forgot to finish this up, this one particular person who admitted at the time that he was the source of much of David Allen's initial categorization of Calvinism was in our chat channel and was pushing his views, and I remember asking him,

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I said, so you would say Robert Raymond was a hyper -Calvinist? Oh, sure, yeah. So from their perspective, a high -Calvinist is a hyper -Calvinist.

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So, again, it makes the words meaningless, it just becomes a label you slap on somebody.

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But that's the situation we face today. So, I'm going to start by letting the guy who wrote the traditionalist statement provide some insight here, because I played this a couple of weeks ago, and I pointed out at that time,

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I said, you know, I think David Allen needs to listen to what

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Eric Hankins has to say. Because I want you to listen to this brief description of hyper -Calvinism from Eric Hankins and ask yourself a question.

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Does it describe me? Because if it doesn't, then why?

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If I am, in fact, a hyper -Calvinist, rather than a high -Calvinist, but not a hyper -Calvinist.

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Let's listen to what Dr. Hankins had to say.

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There are dangers. And there is this, albeit small, but very real little thread of history of hyper -Calvinism.

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There really is such a thing as hyper -Calvinism, and it's really anti -missions. We shouldn't preach the gospel to everyone, because the destiny of people has already been sealed.

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You don't want people to think that they're elect when they're not.

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A false conversion. You don't want your churches filled with unconverted people who are not elected, so you don't preach the gospel to everyone.

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That really does happen. You know what I forgot to do? I was going to give you a picture from either of the mosques in South Africa.

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One of the wide shots. And just ask everyone a question. Is the man standing in front of this room full of Muslims in a mosque in stocking feet in South Africa promiscuously proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ and saying to everyone that if you turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith you'll find him to be a powerful

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Savior. Is that a hyper -Calvinist up there? Could anyone with a serious theological bone in their body say that?

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Because I'm not standing up there in front of those folks looking out there going do I see any evidence of regeneration in these people?

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Because that's what hyper -Calvinists would be looking for. Missions.

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Opposed to missions. Have you seen my frequent flyer account recently?

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I've been doing them. Opposed to missions, opposed to preaching the gospel to everybody.

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Exact parallel to what David Allen would say if we accused him of plagianism. But I believe this and no plagian believes that.

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I think there's one of them. I like the ones that have the audience a little bit more in them.

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You can find some of those. That's a good one. That's Dr.

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Hankins. And he seems to recognize what hyper -Calvinism really looks like. And any honest person is going to go really?

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Seriously? Let me give you some more definitions. That's a good one.

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That's the same mosque. Maybe you can find some from this year. I'm not sitting there looking out over that audience going

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Now, I don't want any of you out there who are non -elect to think this is free.

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No, it didn't happen. Let me give you a definition or a description

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I guess from Peter Toon's book first published back in 1967 called

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The Emergence of Hyper -Calvinism in English Nonconformity 1689 to 1765. Sounds like a real snoozer, doesn't it?

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That's actually not bad. Let's listen to what he says.

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Hyper -Calvinism was a system of theology or a system of the doctrines of God man and grace, which was framed to exalt and honor and glorify

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God and did so at the expense of minimizing the moral and spiritual responsibility of sinners to God.

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It places excessive emphasis on the imminent acts of God eternal justification, eternal adoption and the eternal covenant of grace.

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In practice, this meant that Christ and him crucified, the central message of the apostles was obscured.

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Now let me stop just right there. Some of you have never even heard of the doctrine of, for example, eternal justification.

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But there were people who believed. If the identity of the elect is an absolutely known thing to God by his own will from eternity then you look at Romans 8 those whom he called, he justified.

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Whom he justified, he glorified. It's past tense. Already seen in the heavenly places in Christ therefore you've eternally been justified.

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Now you go, but Paul said we were all children of wrath.

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Exactly. So what Hyper -Calvinism does is emphasizes a system that places the emphasis only upon certain things and as a result ends up sacrificing entire texts of scripture that in their context had to mean certain things.

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The reality is, for example, that while the eternal decree of God includes not only the identity of the elect but the exact time of their salvation.

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That does not change the reality that part of that decree was the meaningfulness of time and the meaningfulness of that life lived prior to regeneration and the point of time of regeneration.

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Really both Hyper -Calvinism and Hyper -Arminianism are rationalistic systems.

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They are well, they do what Layton Flowers does.

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Remember we criticized Flowers in his attempt to represent that monergism article as if it were in regards to homosexuality.

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Remember? And what they do is they squish everything down into two dimensions. Make it very simplistic.

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And that's what both Hyper -Arminianism and Hyper -Calvinism do. They don't want any tensions.

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They don't want to have to explain difficult questions because they're not really following the whole counsel of God.

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Neither one are attempts to really present the whole counsel of God. And so there are people who are talking about eternal justification, eternal adoption because it's all what

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God does and God acts in eternity and therefore it really one of the bad things about this, and you've heard me contradict this so many times.

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I mean, the Hyper -Calvinists do not like me. Okay? I mean, that doesn't get mentioned here, anywhere, of course, because it's not actually concerned about the truthiness of whether I am or not.

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It's trying to make an argument. But you've heard me argue many times that the incarnation is what demonstrates the reality of the importance of events in time.

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The physical creation. Christ enters into his own creation and that demonstrates that what

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God has decreed to take place in time is meaningful from an eternal perspective.

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It's not just puppets. The whole puppet routine is just blown away by any semi -serious contemplation of the meaning of the incarnation itself.

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And so this is what happens with Hyper -Calvinism. It goes on.

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It also often made no distinction between the secret and the revealed will of God and tried to deduce the duty of men from what it taught concerning the secret eternal decrees of God.

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Now, everybody knows, again, everybody who has cared to look into this, the first thing

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I did after David Allum's false attack upon me in 2008 was

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I did I gave a bunch of I did videos.

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We played his video. We responded to it. And what did I say? What did

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I emphasize? This very distinction that Hyper -Calvinists deny.

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Well, what is this distinction? Well, it's a distinction that I have pointed out many times in my conversations with people.

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I just looked at Twitter and saw the back of your head on Twitter. There's proof of something

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I've been telling you about for a while, dude. Yes, I thanked him for not correcting that. Not correcting it?

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What do you mean? Like photoshopping it or something? Hey, you know, it's rude. All right.

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What I pointed out immediately was what we have the only, and I've argued this many times, the only way to understand the

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Biblical revelation in its fullness to practice both Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura is to recognize the prescriptive will of God and that would be the revealed will of God and the decretive or what this called secret will of God.

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That is, God has a decree that he's working out in time, but we do not know what that decree is.

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It's the secret things that belong to the Lord our God. His prescriptive will is revealed in Scripture in the law.

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The only way to make heads or tails out of the Bible, to allow it to be the rich, full text that it is, is to recognize the distinction between those two things.

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Otherwise, it'll make no sense and people will constantly be accusing it of God and the

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Bible of contradiction. Thou shalt not kill. That is part of the prescriptive will of God.

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And yet, God brought the Assyrians against Israel to trample them in the streets, which did involve death and dying together.

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So, if you don't see the difference between these two, and this is not,

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Calvin will speak against the idea that God has two wills as if he's schizophrenic. He's not talking about this distinction.

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The distinction that must be made is to recognize the prescriptive will of God, which is the only thing we are held accountable to.

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We cannot know who the elect are. That's why we preach the gospel to everyone. I cannot look into people's hearts.

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That's why I cannot sit there and put on my special hyper -Calvinist glasses that make the elect glow green, and therefore

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I only preach to them. Can't be done. We are held accountable to the prescriptive will of God, what he has revealed in his law.

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So, everyone who's ever heard me talk about theodicy, election,

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I've talked about this in debates, even with Muslims, for crying out loud, knows that I do not deny the distinction, and yet, here's the description from a scholar, it also often made no distinction between the secret and the revealed will of God.

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Seems like so far total strike out as far as this definition.

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Well, let's continue on. Excessive emphasis was also placed on the doctrine of irresistible grace, with the tendency to state that an elect man is not only passive in regeneration, but also in conversion as well.

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The absorbing interest in the eternal, imminent acts of God and an irresistible grace led to the notion that grace must only be offered to those for whom it was intended.

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Two things. What's the first sentence about? With the tendency to state that an elect man is not only passive in regeneration, but also in conversion as well.

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In other words, there was a lack of emphasis upon the reality of the fact that we believe.

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We are exercising that gift of faith that is given to us. We repent. They are gifts, but the

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Hyper -Calvinist, because his emphasis is solely upon the actions of God, rather than seeing the means that God uses and the importance of those means and the fact that God is glorified in the action of the means in time, the

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Hyper -Calvinist misses that. So the Hyper -Calvinist doesn't preach about the duty of faith and repentance and ignores what

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Paul says in Acts 17. God commands men everywhere to repent. Things that I have preached for decades.

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The next sentence. The absorbing interest in the eternal, imminent acts of God and an irresistible grace led to the notion that grace must only be offered to those for whom it was intended.

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Well, how would you know that? Well, many of them develop the idea that you literally look for evidence of conversion before you preach the gospel to someone.

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Now, I'm sure there's probably a couple, not many, but a couple

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Hyper -Calvinists watching this and they're going, yeah! But that issue aside, can there be any rational, honest human being who has taken almost any time at all to listen to the hundreds of sermons on Sermon Audio?

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I don't even know how many dividing lines roll through the Wayback Machine now.

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Hundreds. Over 1 ,200. Watch any of the more than 100 debates.

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Is there anyone who can go, yep! That's James Wyatt right there.

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He's a Hyper -Calvinist. He's always going, before I tell you about Jesus, I need some evidence you might be regenerate.

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Yep! I'm sorry.

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The accusation is absurd as the day is long. We're going to get to what the grounding is. We're going to read his whole footnote.

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And you're going to find out it's incredibly narrow. Incredibly narrow. But I wanted to give you a fuller definition because we didn't get that there.

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Because it wouldn't support the argument, obviously. Last bit here.

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Finally, a valid assurance of salvation was seen as consisting in an inner feeling and conviction of being eternally elected by God.

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So Hyper -Calvinism led its adherents to hold that evangelism was not necessary and to place much emphasis on introspection in order to discover whether or not one was elect.

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Now, I was going to start off actually telling you a story and I forgot. My first meaningful adult exposure to Calvinism was to a

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Hyper -Calvinist. A real Hyper -Calvinist. I'll never forget it. I remember it to this day. I was exchanging emails with Jeff Neal yesterday.

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We co -authored the same -sex controversy 14 years ago. And we were just talking about shared experiences.

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And he was telling me about a bike ride we did. I have no recollection of it. None. Absolutely none.

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It's terrible. But there are other things. He mentioned my .44

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mag that I had back then and my hand loading for it and I whipped off in the top of my head the exact grain of the bullet and the exact number of grains of IMR -4831 that I put into the shelf.

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Man, the memory's odd. Anyways, some of you are going, you just really...

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yeah, don't worry about it. But I remember this. I was early to chapel at Grand Canyon College.

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And you had assigned seating back then. Believe me, you don't anymore. But we had assigned seating back then. And the chapel was at First Southern Baptist Church right down there on Camelback.

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And there was this sort of odd fella that sat behind me in chapel.

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And we were about the only people in the room. We were that early. And so I started telling him about the outreach that we were doing to the

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Mormons. I started witnessing Mormons. I was witnessing more missionaries. I think we had just gone out to the temple for the very first time.

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And I was telling him about how many... Algo's telling the story before I get to it.

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Algo is telling the story before I get to it. That is wrong. This predates me, by the way.

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Predates our knowing each other, yes. Not you. Okay, Algo, stop that.

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You're scaring me. Algo is in channel telling the story before I do.

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That is inappropriate. It's wrong. Wrong. Anyway, obviously

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I've told the story before. So we're sitting there and I'm telling him this stuff.

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And he just blows me away because he goes, why would you do that?

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Why would you go out there and waste your time talking to Mormons? And I'm like, we're preaching the gospel to them.

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And he said, well, if they're going to get saved, they're going to get saved. It doesn't matter what you do. And I was like, what are you talking about?

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And he was a hyper -Calvinist. He started talking to me about election and God elects his people and they're going to get saved and there you go.

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And I was just scandalized. I was like, what are you talking about? And the next thing

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I saw about Calvinism was in a watchtower. Let me guarantee you that wasn't overly favorable either within just a couple weeks of that.

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So there were two strikes right there. Of course, neither one were accurate. But my first exposure was like, oh man, are you kidding me?

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And so that's what this is talking about.

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Evangelism, it's not necessary. Not necessary. Now, once again, for 18 years we went up to Salt Lake City.

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And the only reason we don't do this now is because the opportunity has been ruined by independent fundamentalist Baptist King James Only guys. But for 18 years, every six months, we went up to Salt Lake City and we evangelized the

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Mormons. We did not have any standards as to who we would give a track to, who we would talk to.

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And that meant we ended up talking to some very odd people. Didn't you end up with the guy with the no shirt that wasn't wearing a shirt and had a knife or something?

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Was that you? Or was that Mike? Mike had that one? Okay. But we all had some really interesting people.

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I can guarantee you, we still proclaim the gospel to them. Remember the year I went up with laryngitis? No. Yeah, this was my second time and I was literally, by the end of the day, surrounded by about 20.

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There's a picture somewhere of that. Actually, I do remember that now. It's actually helping get my memory working again to be talking to old people.

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Anyway, so, unless Toon's definition is just completely off base, so far, nothing here is even slightly relevant to yours truly.

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In fact, my positive profession, ministry, and practice for decades is thoroughly opposed to all this, which is why the hyper -Calvinists don't like me.

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So, what's the basis, then, of the accusation? Well, it's one thing. One single thing.

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That's why it's a direct parallel. Absolute parallel. Dr. Allen, if I'm a hyper -Calvinist, you're a plagian.

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Just admit it. Just come out and say, you're right, I'm a plagian. If you won't do that, then you, sir, by any honest standard, have been refuted.

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And the question is, will you just be honest enough to do the right thing? That's the only question. Now, let's look at what the issue is.

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And I've just been asked by someone on channel when I became

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Amish. That particular individual has been annoying me today, so I think when we're done here, there may be some lengthy prosperitory experiences for certain people.

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I won't mention anybody by name, but he'll figure it out. I do need my progressive lenses for this,

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I'm afraid. Especially because it's a footnote. I mean, this is maybe, what, four, five, five point font, maybe?

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Here's the footnote. It's number 104. This is page 95. I noticed in the Kindle edition, even though the

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Kindle edition has page numbers, it's not the actual page numbers. So if you get the

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Kindle edition, it shows up somewhere else, unfortunately. But you can search for it. There's actually two footnotes right next to each other.

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And I'm just going to go with both of them. So you get the whole story. Both Kurt Daniel and Ian Murray associate the denial of God's universal saving desire with hyper -Calvinism, since it is the key point in the dispute regarding the free offer.

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Then you get some references. Murray summarizes his book as follows. In Murray's correspondence with David Engelsma on the subject of the free offer, he wrote,

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In a review of David Silverside's book, which defends the free offer, Murray says, So, what's this about?

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Well, it's about the issue of free offer. Or, other people use a slightly different term, well -meant offer.

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Here's the key footnote right here. Number 104. Also, in a book addressing various issues related to open theism,

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Johnson dealt with the question of whether God, in any sense, desires what he does not bring to pass. He says that,

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He then rightly cautions against taking expressions of desire and longing from the heart of God in a simplistically literal sense, as this will result in compromising

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God's sovereignty. Therefore, the yearning God expresses in these verses must to some degree be anthropopathic.

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Johnson says that, nevertheless, we must also see that these expressions mean something. They reveal an aspect of the divine mind that is utterly impossible to reconcile with the view of those who insist that God's sovereign decrees are equal to his desires in every meaningful sense.

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Is there no sense in which God ever wishes for or prefers anything other than what actually occurs, including the fall of Adam, the damnation of the wicked, and every evil in between?

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My own opinion, and I think Dabney would have agreed, is that those who refuse to see any true expression of God's heart whatsoever in his optative exclamations have embraced the spirit of the hyper -Calvinist error.

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And that's from Bound Only Once, The Failure of Open Theism, page 118. This article also can be accessed here.

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Both of Johnson's quotes, in addition to his references on the will of God in his primer on hyper -Calvinism, would seem to implicate

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James White, Alpha and Omega Ministries, as a hyper -Calvinist, since White concurs with Raymond's view that God does not desire the salvation of the non -elect and then, in italics, in any sense.

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Both White and Raymond think affirming the contrary imputes irrationality to God, and Raymond explicitly appeals to John Gill's teaching in this respect,

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C. R. L. Raymond, A New Systematic Theology, 692 -693. White is not just quibbling over optative expressions, as Johnson seems to think.

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Both Raymond and White reject the concept that God desires the salvation of all men. Whatever the case may be, it is nevertheless clear that White, a

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Reformed Baptist, is thoroughly out of sync with Sam Waldron's strong statements about the will of God in John 534, as he expounds the free offer teaching in the 1689

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London Baptist Confession, C. Waldron's Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, pages 121 -122.

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In contrast to White, and as I noted during the John 316 conference, Tom Askew agrees with Johnson's orthodox

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Calvinist view that God desires all people to be saved in His revealed will. It is therefore troubling to think that Askew, or anyone in the

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Southern Baptist Founders movement, would ally himself with White, a non -Southern Baptist Calvinist who rejects the well -meant gospel offer when planning to debate other

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Southern Baptists on Calvinism. By the way, those were the Canners. Oops.

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Oops. But of course, I think Alan probably still defends Canner. That was my point in the

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John 316 conference. Now this was written after. So this is trying to rescue the false accusation that was made from the refutation that both

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I and Phil Johnson provided to it. So instead of accepting correction, they doubled down and put it in print in this particular book.

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So, some of you are going, is this hour over with yet?

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Give me a little while here to try to explain what this is all about.

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When we talk, well first of all, you need to understand that many synergists, since they don't like the term

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Arminians, fine. We'll use a different term. Many synergists, as all the traditionalist

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Southern Baptists are, using their own term, it's a ridiculous term, but if they want to use it, fine.

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Many synergists claim that no Calvinist who believes in particular redemption, as Phil Johnson does, could ever give a well -meant offer of the gospel or a free offer of the gospel.

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Why? Here's their argument. You cannot say to everyone repent and believe because provision has not been made for everyone to repent and believe and receive the benefits of Christ's death if his death was specifically for the elect.

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By the way, I would also say if his death was specifically substitutionary because this raises the whole issue of whether it saves or only makes savable.

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Another issue. So keep in mind that for many synergists this is not about hyper -Calvinism.

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This is an argument against Calvinism, period. But the focus here is much more narrow.

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Much more narrow. Alan says that I deny, and he puts in italics that I deny

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White concurs with Raymond's view that God does not desire the salvation of the non -elect in any sense.

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In italics. And that he then associates this later with God's prescriptive will.

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Now, what is this all about? Well, it is without question that in God's prescriptive will

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God not only expresses his desire for the salvation of all he commands the repentance of all.

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Does he not? What's the prescriptive will? God's revealed will. His law.

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And so it is not really questionable that you have the expression on the part of God in his prescriptive will, in his law repent, turn do not be destroyed it's all there.

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Now, any Calvinist, well, anyone who takes seriously the

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Bible's teaching that there is a decree of God if you don't believe there's a decree of God I don't even know how you call yourself a

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Christian theist to be perfectly honest with you but anyone has to struggle with, wrestle with the reality that while God says thou shalt not kill his decree has included the death of many.

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And in its fullest sense the death of Christ.

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You have to deal with that. And so what this all boils down to really honestly is this when we're talking about God's desires in the prescriptive will of God and God's desire as expressed in his decree are we going to say that these are equal things or are we going to subsume one under the other what's gotten me into trouble is that I actually have to take the

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Christian faith out into the world with the best that the opponents of the

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Christian faith have to offer and so this idea of consistency and thinking things through is sort of important to me you know if you're just sitting in America and pretty much in a seminary context you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff very much and my concern has always been this and this is where I agree with much of what

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Raymond said because he was dealing with the same thing and again if you're going to call someone like Raymond a hyper -Calvinist you're obviously a hoopoe

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Calvinist and you're not using the terms in any meaningful fashion but anyway here's the issue is

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God schizophrenic or to put it more bluntly has

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God eternally decreed his own unhappiness because what the synergist wants to do is to destroy the distinction that is necessary to see in regards to the redemptive love of God and the common grace of God and a lot of hyper -Calvinists don't even believe in common grace so I just I don't know how

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I did that but the synergist wants to attack that distinction that I believe is absolutely necessary and it's all across the face of the

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Bible when we talk about the sitting here trying to deal with an important issue check out the last tweet well

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I hope that most people recognize that I'm trying to lay out important issues here so people can understand what the real issues are in regards to what is reformed theology what are accusations of hyper -Calvinism what is the free offer of the gospel what is the well -meant offer

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I hope that's useful to somebody maybe if it's been useful to you you might want to let me know on Twitter because it seems other people don't find it overly useful helpful and encouraging anyways

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I should turn that off if I'm talking to you it's right there anyway to avoid being a hyper -Calvinist do you have to affirm that God is going to throughout eternity be experiencing loss and unhappiness and sadness and discontentment because the equal object of his love is undergoing his own wrath and hell that's the question and I have said

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I don't see that I don't see that what's really going on here is many people to fight the corrosive effects of real hyper -Calvinism have tried to identify well where does it start at let's attack it at its root and in the process have ended up drawing parameters to go well if you start down that road then maybe

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I know you don't say all those things there's a lot of things you can say you shouldn't go that direction because that's where that heresy starts when these things down here are absolutely valid positions and biblically defensible

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God's prescriptive will calls for all men to repent and demonstrates that God calls all men and does so with proper pleadings appropriate pleadings and promises but to confuse that with the idea that there is no electing grace of God and hence no redeeming love

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I don't go there, I can't go there and to say that God decreed in his secret counsel his own eternal unhappiness goes against everything

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I've ever read in the Bible on this subject, everything God says that he does whatever pleases him in Psalm 135 if it were to please him to save every single human being on the earth he could do that,

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I'm not a Molinist he could do that, now some people will say well they run off to Ezekiel 18

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God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked this is where again you have to allow all of scripture,

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I become concerned when people become skittish when we actually raise scriptural passages because I've found a number of people who who don't even think you should think about some biblical passages lest it lead you down the road to that and this normally comes from people who have been fighting against one problem fighting against one problem and they themselves become imbalanced for example,

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Deuteronomy 28 -63 it's a tough section,

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I had to read this section I read the I do the pastoral reading,

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Sunday morning and Sunday night normally, unless I'm preaching and then somebody else isn't but man, reading

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Deuteronomy 28 was tough and it should come about this is the curses section this is the tough section it should come about that as Yahweh delighted over you to prosper you and multiply you so Yahweh will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it

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I didn't write it, don't get mad at me the fact is simplistic biblical exegesis will eventually fall apart and you need to be able to balance contextualize, prioritize in light,

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I think first, not of man but of God, these texts I take no pleasure in the death of the ungodly

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I will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you the atheist goes, contradiction, contradiction let's just leave the atheists aside, they're not a part of this conversation they don't care about what the word of God says they don't even view it as the word of God they don't care about harmonization how do you put them together?

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and is there a danger of being so concerned we can't go that direction that you end up drawing a line, you can't go past here

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I am very concerned that some people in essence have said to avoid becoming a hyper -Calvinist you may not go there but someone else might and so to avoid becoming a hyper -Calvinist you have to affirm contradictory desires on God's part he desires in the same way but he doesn't desire in the same way he desires but he won't do and I go, the desire that is the essence of the extension of divine grace in the electing act of God of the people of God is absolutely unique absolutely unique in fact it almost concerns me that if you demand the other perspective you're going to end up with some form of equal ultimacy which

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I've spoken against as well and so I say you have to allow the

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Bible to answer these questions now, having said all of that what

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Alan does is he takes this I know we're going to go a few minutes over but I want to finish this

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I was looking at the channel Lagas said no hyper -Calvinist would dare wear that t -shirt the t -shirt was sent to me by someone in Twitter I think it was

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Twitter or Facebook a couple weeks ago someone said hey, this looks like a fractal and I said yeah, it's pretty cool and since I responded, what size do you wear?

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arrive sometime when I was in Florida and so I thought it would be nice to wear it because it does look a little bit like a fractal

01:00:01

I'm sure Gail Riplinger thinks it looks like something else and will write an article about it at some point but that's neither here nor there anyway, what does it have to do with what

01:00:16

Alan has done I honestly believe that what David Allen is trying to do is to marginalize any effect

01:00:27

I might have within his sphere of influence as much as possible and the hyper -Calvinist accusation is the best way to do it the best way to do it

01:00:38

I happen to know there are people at Southwestern who would rather have

01:00:47

Muslims enrolled at Southwestern studying there than to have me teaching on Islam at any

01:00:55

Southern Baptist school I know that and if that's your mindset then you're going to go a long ways to try to make that happen the description

01:01:12

I provided from Dr. Hankins of hyper -Calvinism is the exact opposite of me and if you can say, well it seems to me that even though you say that the command to all men to repent is in God's prescriptive will if you will not affirm an equal desire in the prescriptive will as in the decretive will and hence deny redemptive love and deny the special redeeming love for the elect you're a hyper -Calvinist.

01:01:45

That's Alan's argument and that is ridiculous it is worse than the argument

01:01:51

I started this entire program with because there's a whole lot better reason to accuse

01:01:57

David Allen of at least being a semi -Pelagian than there is to accuse me of being a hyper -Calvinist and it's a whole lot easier to explain that argumentation than what we had in that now

01:02:12

I had let me just go ahead I had this marked so I wanted to point it out to you even in Sam Waldron's discussion here the scriptures teach a general gospel call which comes to the hearers of the gospel indiscriminately and which may be and often is resisted the biblical witness does not overthrow the scriptural teaching of an unconditional election and an irresistible grace when our finite minds contemplate the glory of the incomprehensible

01:02:56

God revealed in the scriptures we often will be unable to penetrate completely how two seemingly contradictory truths may be reconciled this witness ought, however, to rid us of every hesitation in calling men indiscriminately passionately, freely, and authoritatively to embrace

01:03:12

Jesus Christ as he is freely offered in the gospel and that's exactly what I do that's exactly what

01:03:19

I do but it is interesting yeah, here, just above this, page 122 the

01:03:26

Bible teaches that the good gifts which God bestows upon men in general including the non -elect are manifestations of what?

01:03:38

God's general love and common grace towards them. Even Waldron makes the exact same distinction that I insist upon it's not a manifestation of a decree of salvation or of redemptive love is it?

01:03:58

No one last thing just looking at some of the thank you thank you, thank you.

01:04:12

Yeah, I saw that too yeah, sorry for misunderstanding, I understand Institutes of the

01:04:19

Christian Religion I attended a conference with a well -known scholar

01:04:32

Dr. Torrance, years ago at Fuller Seminary and Jeff Neal and I were both there and sometime afterwards

01:04:40

I forget what the context was, Jeff said something to me that I had always remembered and that was one of the reasons

01:04:45

I wrote to him he said to me, well what he said was interesting but he seems to be forgetting the fact that Calvin himself said that if you want to know what he believes theologically, you go to the institutes first you don't go to the commentaries.

01:04:59

I asked him what that was found it, well he found it, he directed me to it put the glasses back on, he directed me to it and I'll read you just just a portion of it here very short, it was right toward the beginning here we go if after this road has, as it were been paved,

01:05:34

I shall publish any interpretation of scripture I shall always condense them because I shall have no need to undertake long doctrinal discussions and to digress into commonplaces, in this way the godly reader will be spared great annoyance and boredom, provided he approaches scripture armed with the knowledge of the present work as a necessary tool.

01:05:51

So what's he saying? If you want to know my theology, it's right here read my commentaries, which he ended up writing many of them those words appeared as early as 1539 read my commentaries and I have this when people try to turn

01:06:06

Calvin into a self -contradictory guy they go to the commentaries first, just watch they'll go to the commentaries, they won't go here there are numerous texts that I could direct you to that are directly relevant to this subject and to an accusation of hyper -Calvinism, which would be doing what?

01:06:29

I guess going beyond Calvin I won't read all of them but if you'll just read basically chapter 18

01:06:46

God so uses the works of the ungodly and so bends their minds to carry out his judgments that he remains pure from every stain chapter 18 of book 1, it's the last chapter in book 1 of the

01:06:58

Institutes read what Calvin says there, see if it's not very similar to what I said, and then

01:07:04

I do want to read just a couple paragraphs from book 3 the way we receive the grace of Christ and this is in chapter 22 some object that God would be contrary to himself, this is section 10 if he should universally invite all men to him but admit only a few as elect thus in their view the universality of the promises removes the distinction of special grace and some moderate men speak thus not so much to stifle the truth as to bar thorny questions and to bridle the curiosity of many one of the things that's always amazed me and those of you who've listened to me for years know this to be true someone in the channel just said what book is he holding this is the

01:07:52

Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin nothing

01:07:59

I've ever written is like this why? because the ink smudges and not because of the marking on the page the ink of the

01:08:10

Institutes still smudges what do I mean by that? what I mean by that is somehow writing four centuries ago four and a half more well depends on which edition writing so long ago it's still relevant the ink still smudges like it was printed yesterday

01:08:35

I don't have that capacity very few people do what he's saying right here is exactly the situation we're facing today a laudable intention this but the design is not to be approved for evasion is never excusable but those who instantly revile election offer a quibble too disgusting or an error too shameful

01:08:55

I've elsewhere explained how scripture reconciles the two notions that all are called to repentance and faith by outward preaching yet that the spirit of repentance and faith is not given to all soon

01:09:08

I shall have to repeat some of this now I deny what they claim since it is false in two ways for he who threatens that while it will rain upon one city there will be drought in another and who elsewhere announces a famine of teaching does not bind himself by a set law to call all men equally and he who forbidding

01:09:23

Paul to speak the word in Asia and turning him aside from Bithynia draws him into Macedonia thus shows that he has the right to distribute his treasure to whom he pleases through Isaiah he still more openly shows how he directs the promises of salvation specifically to the elect for he proclaims that they alone not the whole human race without distinction are to become his disciples

01:09:41

Isaiah 8 16 hence it is clear that the doctrine of salvation which is said to be reserved solely and individually for the sons of the church is falsely debased when presented as effectually profitable to all let this suffice the present although the voice of the gospel addresses all in general yet the gift of faith is rare Isaiah sets forth the cause that the arm of the

01:10:03

Lord has not been revealed to all if he had said that the gospel is maliciously and wickedly despised because many stubbornly refused to hear it perhaps this aspect of universal calling would have forced but it is not the prophet's intention to extenuate men's guilt when he teaches that the source of the blindness is that the

01:10:20

Lord does not deign to reveal his arm to them he only warns that because faith is a special gift the ears are beaten upon in vain with outward preaching hmm and he says now

01:10:35

I should like to know from these doctors whether preaching alone or faith makes God's sons surely when it is said that in the first chapter of John all who believe in the only begotten son of God also become sons of God themselves

01:10:46

John 1 12 no confused mass is placed there but a special rank is given to believers who are born not of blood or the will of flesh or the will of man but of God and you continue on in his discussion and let me just this is chapter 24 book 3 section 12 at the end last paragraph the nature of the former would be occupied with the same malice if God did not correct it by his goodness therefore we shall always be confused unless Paul's question comes to mind who distinguishes you first Corinthians 4 7 by this he means that some excel others not by their own virtue but by God's grace alone

01:11:58

I would simply say that to those Koopa Calvinists who squeamishly lightly pass over much in the institutes just because you don't agree with Calvin doesn't make me a hyper -Calvinist and I'm not talking about David Allen here he ain't a

01:12:23

Calvinist at all you know who I'm talking about you know who I'm talking about high

01:12:28

Calvinism is not hyper -Calvinism can a high

01:12:34

Calvinist become a hyper -Calvinist sure if they lose balance but a Trinitarian can become a polytheist if they lose balance a person who believes in salvation by grace through faith alone can become a libertine if they lose balance the simple question

01:12:53

Dr. Allen is this can any honest person look at how I practice my faith how

01:13:00

I've defended my faith what I've written and say oh yeah he's practicing hyper -Calvinism the answer is no

01:13:05

I've not lost my balance you have in your argumentation you have in your argumentation there you go now is that going to convince

01:13:17

David Allen I doubt it I doubt it I really doubt it but hopefully in addressing that I mean think about it think about the last two dividing lines what have we done this is this is not your normal kind of webcasting which means if you're watching you're not the normal kind of webcast watcher if you're going to think

01:13:48

I'm weird you're the one watching you're the one listening yeah this is the last two have been fairly in depth but gotta be addressed and I hope it's been useful to you there's lots of things we still need to get to I've got so many things on the list and right now

01:14:11

I've got so much stuff going on I'd appreciate your prayers because man I am up to my eyeballs and I don't know how

01:14:20

I'm going to get it all done but there were two two count them Radio Free Geneva's in a row some of you have been going we haven't had a

01:14:29

Radio Free Geneva forever well now you've got an overdose so there you go Radio Free Geneva charge of hyper -Calvinism refuted yet once again hopefully that's been useful to you thanks for listening to the program