MSL: March 11, 2024

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The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at calm .org.

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When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live for answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick Live.

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If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

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Give me a call. All right. Easy to do. All right. A little tech thing going on here.

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It's kind of interesting. And I had a great weekend. I got to be able to do some apologetics last night.

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Define the Christian faith. Enjoy that on Discord. And there you go.

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I hope you all had a good weekend. On Friday, I was in a debate with Andrew Rappaport.

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Andrew and I were on the same team, and we argued against our opponents.

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Let me fix this right here. There we go. Right there. All right. Now we should be working now.

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So we debated on... Well, what did we debate? Man, I can't remember. Seriously, that was

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Friday. Was it open theism? No. What was it? Oh, was it Trinity or monarchism?

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Now I remember. And, boy, there's a lot going on. And so I thought it was an interesting debate.

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I don't think they... They weren't able to refute the doctrine of the

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Trinity that I presented in my opening statement, and Andrew closed. They weren't able to deal with the issue of what it is

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I said in my opening statement on the Trinity and how it's arrived at. And I've noticed this, that when

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I debate the doctrine of the Trinity and I present the Trinity table that I've developed over the years on Karm, and I put it in, you know,

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I said, this is how it's done. This is what's going on. If the Trinity's not true, then this needs to be refuted, because that's how it's arrived at.

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You know, one God... The Bible teaches one God, but yet Jesus is God. The Father's called God. The Holy Spirit's called

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God. They each speak to each other. They each have wills, things like that, when that's exactly what you do to arrive at the doctrine of the

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Trinity. Simultaneous persons, and there's only one God, and each called God. That's it. I mean, that's how you arrive at it.

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And I was hoping that they would address that. I've noticed they didn't do that, and nobody else in my debates has done that.

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I don't even recall. Maybe someone has. I just don't recall. So I thought it went well.

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There was a good debate, and if you saw it and you want to comment, please give me a call, 877 -207 -2276, and we can talk about it.

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Up to you. Let's get on the phone with Gino from South Carolina. Gino, welcome. You are on the air.

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Hey, Matt. Thanks. Matt, I'm a young Christian. However, I'm very hungry for the

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Word, very hungry for the knowledge, so I take theology classes, and in my theology classes

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I've learned that at this point I'm a Calvinist. However, I'm learning that I am struggling with compatibilism, and I'm pretty sure that's where you hang your hat, and my theology teacher does as well.

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But here's my question for you, Matt, and let's see if you and I can't get into a good fight here.

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I'm wondering if you believe in the free will, because I know that on your debates on YouTube I've watched you believe in free will.

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Are you talking about free will after regeneration? No, free will, we have to define it.

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And what I do is I use God as a standard of free will. So God can't lie,

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He can't sin, but He has free will. So we have to define free will in relationship to Him, that free will is the ability to do what you desire without being forced, but what you desire is consistent with your nature.

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So God would never desire to do anything bad, so He's the standard of free will. So unbelievers, atheists, and Christians, they all have free will by that definition.

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They all are able to make choices, no one's forcing them to do choices, I mean, sometimes it happens, but I mean, that's what free will is, and they're doing these choices in a manner consistent with their nature, it all makes perfect sense.

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So what do you think of that so far? Well, here's what I'm, I'm going to cut right to the hot dog.

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Here's the thing, when you're born, you have no choice, you were born, you had zero choice in the matter.

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Okay, and then we are born, yep, we are born with very limited, very restricted free will because we are dead in our sins.

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And then what happens is God awards us

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His grace without any acceptance, without any free will or any choice, but you have the grace of God, period.

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And then we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and that's also done without being, without any free will, without any say in the matter, is what

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I'm saying. And then apparently now we've been given a new nature, and that new nature will lead us towards choosing righteousness over evil, but even still, that is done pretty much,

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I would say, without our free will. And so then we have this area where it seems that synergism is needed for compatibilist, and I just am thinking, why can't it all, from one, two, three, four, five, six points that I gave you there,

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I don't understand why all of it can't be the work of God. There's zero from us, no acceptance of Christ, not even a leaning, if any words are used for number six, which is the synergism,

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I'd like to believe that it is completely and utterly just absolutely imputed in us, just the way you...

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Hold on, hold on, let's back up. Okay, so you have a question? Because you're going in different directions now, and I'm not sure what your question is.

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So the question is, so after regeneration, if you're choosing, because as I heard you say on one of your videos, and this is one of my...

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If you're choosing, just finish the question, finish the question. If you're choosing... Yeah, there's a choice to choose

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Christ and not to follow, to either choose to follow Christ and not follow Christ, after regeneration. Well, so what

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I hold to is the logical priority of regeneration preceding faith.

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So let me illustrate. So when you flip a switch on a light bulb, electricity goes into the light bulb, and the instantaneous result is the light.

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So electricity and light are simultaneous, but electricity is the cause of the light.

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Therefore, it's logically prior, but simultaneously, they're temporally. Temporally, they're at the same time, but logically, one must cause the other.

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Likewise, regeneration and faith are simultaneous, but regeneration is what brings and produces faith in us.

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And regeneration is of our nature, so that we do actually freely choose

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God. And yet, at the same time, he also grants that we believe, Philippians 129. Okay?

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But see, you're still using this word choice, and that's where I just struggle with that, because even that choice, as you just said, it has pretty much...

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You don't have a choice. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. So I'm going to give you some options.

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I want you to pick a number, 1 through 10. Pick a number. Okay, did you give it to you?

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Yeah, what's the number? Okay, so you freely chose it, right? Yes, sir.

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Right. Did anybody force you to? Well, see, now that gets us into a different area.

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I only want to talk about free will as it relates to salvation. Okay, hold on.

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I got you, I got you. I'm trying to lay a foundation down. Did anyone force you to make that free will choice of number 8?

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No, sir. No. Okay. If an atheist, we're talking an atheist, they pick a number, and he picked number 3, did anybody force him to do that?

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No. He generated it out of himself, right? So you both have free will.

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But the Bible says, as far as salvation goes, the unbeliever is a slave of sin, a hater of God, doesn't seek for God, doesn't receive spiritual things.

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He has to have his heart and mind opened by God. That's all. So what's the problem?

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Well, the problem is, is there a choice after regeneration?

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Is there? Because I heard. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. No, no. Hold on. If you see, is there a choice after regeneration?

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I already showed you or tried to show you that regeneration and belief are simultaneous. So when you say after regeneration, then we're off track.

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So when someone's regenerated, they do the believing. I believe, in my opinion, they happen at the same time.

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Okay. Thank you. That's where I stand, because I've heard this from compatriots, which is

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God does 100 % of the work of salvation plus your humble acceptance.

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And that's like X plus one equals X. And it's a contradiction.

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It doesn't add up. Well, so it's not a contradiction.

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All that compatibilism is saying is that free will is compatible with God's determination.

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That's what's going on. That's what compatibilism is. In fact, I can make you, so to speak, do what

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I want you to do without violating your free will. We could be at a restaurant, sitting next to a window, and I point out a window and just shout out, look at that.

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And you look. Well, I caused you to look, but you freely chose to look. And so you have to be careful about free will and what you think it is.

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But compatibilism says that men and people are sinful in their nature, and their free wills are affected by that sin.

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And that in order to be saved, God has to grant that you believe. That's what Philippians 1 .29 says.

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And he does. He causes us to be born again, 1 Peter 1 .3. And at the same time, we actually do the believing.

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We do the receiving. We receive Christ, John 1 .12, and we do the believing. That's just what it is.

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Okay, so one more question, very quickly, I promise. So one more question, which would be, so then we're going to say then that the acceptance or the receiving after regeneration, the accepting or receiving is non -conditional.

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And the reason why I'm saying that is because if it's conditional, obviously there's two outcomes, and that means you could not accept or not choose to receive

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Christ, in which case you would be denying self -salvation. That's impossible, correct?

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It's conditioned on regeneration and God's work. That's the condition.

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Yes, sir, but the receiving and accepting, those are the words that compatibilists use. And so this receiving and accepting

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Christ after regeneration, these are the words that are used, not made. Along with regeneration, along with.

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Because if you say after, then you're saying that there's a time difference where someone's a regenerated person, but he's not a believer for a while, until after a while he believes.

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How do you have a regenerate person who's not a believer? So to relieve some confusion, especially the confusion that a newbie such as myself might have between Arminianism and Calvinism, sure, would be, why don't we not use receive and accept, and just use, and Christ has imputed you, and you are imputed in Christ, and call it a day.

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No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Imputation doesn't deal with faith. Imputation deals with righteousness. It's a legal thing, so it's not the right word to use in that context.

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Now, John 1 .12 says, as many as received him, to them it gave the right to be called the children of God. We receive

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Christ, and he grants that we believe, Philippians 1 .29. So we actually do the believing, but God grants it to us.

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It's a bit of a mystery. Hold on. We'll be right back. We've got a break, okay? Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages.

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We'll get back with Gina a little bit. We'll talk about this a little bit more, and then we'll move along. May the Lord bless you. Be right back.

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It's Matt Slick Live! Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Let's get back on with Gino.

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Are you still there, buddy? Yeah, I sure am, Matt. I am. Okay. So I forgot where we were.

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I'm going to break kind of. Stop this overflow. Go ahead. All right.

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If you need me, I can break us back in. So I understand what you're talking about in terms of accepting

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Christ in the way that your nature has been changed after regeneration.

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And all this talk brings me back to the beginning, Matt, which is free will is – and by the way,

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Matt, I'm a Calvinist, I believe in predestination, I love all that part.

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But I'm struggling with this compatibilism, I'm hoping to put it behind me soon, and I'm almost certain that I'll choose compatibilism, and hopefully after I mature,

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I'll be able to be more comfortable with it. But what I want to say is that I believe that God restricts and limits our free will all through our life, and I hate to lean towards being a determinist, but I do believe that God controls a lot more than we're aware of, and that's because we're anthropomorphism.

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Of course he does. Okay, good. I'm glad you agree. Of course he does. Yeah, that's right. But we still have freedom within the realm that God has granted to us, and how we make choices is important, and it is very important.

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That's why we pray, we ask God to change us, to work through us. God's way beyond us, way beyond compatibilism, and way beyond libertarianism.

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So I just say, I just trust him beyond my ability to understand. I know that he granted that I believe, and that faith is in Christ, and yet I'm free, and I do all

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I can – well, not all, but you get what I'm saying, I do all I can to try and serve him and honor him in that freedom that he's given me.

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And that's it. I just trust him beyond my ability to understand. Okay? Well, Matt, please know this.

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So one last thing is I am so happy that I know of you,

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I'll be following you, and hopefully you'll – do you do speaking engagements? If they invite me,

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I do. I've got, you know, different places, I do. I speak in all kinds of tongues. It's always my house at Thanksgiving.

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And let's see, you are in South Carolina. I need to get out to South Carolina. A lot of people out there I'd love to meet.

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If I could get a venue out there to speak at, and if you pay my way to get out there, I'd be glad to do it.

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It'd be a lot of fun, you know? Matt, you're a wonderful man. I'm glad I got to speak with you.

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Thank you, sir. Hey, well, praise God. I don't know about wonderful, but hey, praise God. Okay, man.

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We'll talk to you later. Yes, praise the Lord. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Hey, let's get on with Amy from Wyoming.

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Amy, welcome. You are on the air. Hi, Matt. Thanks for having me.

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Sure. So just a little bit of a precursor to my question. I just came across Apologetics Live with you and Mr.

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Rappaport, which led me to CARM about 10 days ago. And I've just been binging on both.

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And it's really opened my eyes to a lot of a lot of stuff. And I appreciate everything you guys are doing.

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So I have a question about salvation. And I've heard you argue now many times that if we lose it, we never had it to begin with.

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And I totally understand that. But my question specifically is, you know, suicide, can a

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Christian still go to heaven? Even if they commit suicide? Yes. Yes, they can.

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Okay. Let me talk about why I was hoping to hear. Sure. Yes, please. See, our salvation does not depend upon our compliance with the law or our goodness or our failures.

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And so, you know, in my own life, for example, I don't know about you, but in my life, there's a lot of things

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I'm still working on and struggling with. Well, some people say that, let's just take a generic thing called pride.

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Let's say that you've got to repent of your pride. Well, do you? Well, I repented of that, you know,

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I tried yesterday and I'm moving along and I still find I've got some. And next week, oh, there was that pride again, but I'm repenting of that.

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And you're constantly repenting of the same thing. Well, are you really repentant then? Yeah. Well, yeah, you are.

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You're trying, but it's part of you. So repentance isn't the thing that makes us right with God.

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It's faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And he retains us, keeps us because of who

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Christ is, what Christ has done, not because of how good we are. So now let's talk about someone who commits suicide.

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Now, there's different reasons to commit suicide that people have. What do you do with a soldier, for example, who's going to be captured and he knows that he will be tortured and torture does work and he will end up giving away the plans for the invasion and all our guys are going to die.

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Right. He knows this kind of a thing if they find out the plan. So he takes a gun, he shoots himself so that he can save others.

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Well, does that mean he goes to hell? Well, it's a tough one to answer, you know, while he couldn't repent.

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Well, what's there to repent of? Because he's sacrificing his own life to save someone else.

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What if a man, for example, jumps in the water? And my mom knew somebody this happened to.

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He jumps in the water to save a friend who was drowning and he drowned. They both ended up drowning.

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Now is that suicide? Because he killed himself by the action of his own hand. What about someone who has a gun?

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He's cleaning his gun. He shoots himself in the head. That doesn't plan on it. It's accidental. That's another form of suicide. OK, well, what do we do about someone who's just in misery, in pain?

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And the pain reduces the endorphins in their body, reduces them, causing stress.

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Their brains are just not working right, and they kill themselves. They go to hell? I wouldn't say so.

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What about someone who just doesn't like life and kills himself? They go to hell? You know, if they're Christians? No. Have they sinned?

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Yes. You see, this is just not an easy question to answer. I'm not complaining about the question.

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It's a good question. It's just that there's a lot of variables in there. OK? Can we quickly touch on...

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Yes, sir. Can you hear me? Yes, yes. Go ahead. OK. OK. Can you...

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I think I answered my own question by asking the first one, but blasphemy, then, is not really an unforgivable sin in the sense that a true

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Christian would never blaspheme, then, correct? Well, I wouldn't say a true Christian can't blaspheme, but blasphemy of the

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Holy Spirit is not forgivable. Blasphemy is forgivable. And we know that because of what

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Jesus says in Matthew 12, 22 through 32. And when he talks about blasphemy there, he says, verse 31, therefore,

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I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people. But blasphemy against the

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Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Now what is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? A lot of people say, well, it's just being mean to God.

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No, it's not. You know, it's saying that Jesus was doing his miracles by the power of the devil.

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That's what it is in the context. You read the context. That's what it is. I just went over this with someone last night, as a matter of fact, or I think it was,

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I can't remember what day it was. It doesn't matter. And this is what that is.

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So a blasphemy can be forgiven. I remember once I got so mad at God.

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I yelled at God, raised my fist in the air and yelled at him to leave me alone. I did that once.

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I still remember it. And what a stupid thing that was to do. And yet here I am standing for you forgiven.

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Hold on. We've got a break. Okay. We'll get back to you after the break. All right, Amy. Hold on. Hey folks. We'll be right back after these messages.

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I hope you want to stay tuned and we'll be right back. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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All right, everyone. Welcome back to the show. We'll get back on with me as soon as the producer reactivates

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Amy and then I can click on her and get her on. She's probably panicking right now. There we go. Okay.

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Amy, welcome. You're back on the air. Okay. All right. Well, I asked both of the questions

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I said I would ask, so I will politely bow out and let somebody else go. I'll call back another day.

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Okay. I hope that helped. All right. Yes, it absolutely did. Thank you so much,

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Mr. Slick. Okay. You're welcome. God bless. Okay. All right.

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Now let's get to Luke and then we'll get to Christopher. So Luke, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt.

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How are you, sir? I'm fine. How are you? Good. Good. How was your debate?

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It was good. Yeah, it went fine. And yeah, I think it went really well.

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Yep. So what do you got, man? What's up? Today's question is, do

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Lutherans use prayer beads? Lutherans, Anglicans, these

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Protestants use prayer beads? Not that I'm aware of. I don't see why they couldn't.

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They count their prayers. As long as there's not vain repetition. I don't see the point of prayer beads because I think you should just pray.

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Let your heart open up and just go. Not recite something 15 times. So I don't see.

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I haven't. I'm not aware of any prayer beads being used by them. Okay. So do

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Lutherans say the Hail Mary? Not that I'm aware of. And I went to a Lutheran college. Okay.

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Yeah, because one of the Lutherans, one of my friend Lutherans, he said that they changed

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Hail Mary little change and they use this Hail Mary and they use rosary beads for prayer.

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Well, just tell him if he's praying to Mary, he's committing idolatry. He needs to stop it. Okay. All right.

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Just tell him. You're committing idolatry. Stop praying. Stop praying. Stop praying to Mary. Address God. Only God can hear all our prayers, thoughts, emotions, and different languages simultaneously all over the world.

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That's God's purview. Not a creature. Don't pray to a creature. Okay. That's giving. Go ahead.

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And Lutheran church. What is the Missouri Synod? What is this? I don't understand. Can you explain to me?

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Yes. Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. LCMS. That's the college I went to. And it's orthodox.

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There's a lot of good stuff in it. They believe you could lose your salvation, which I don't agree with. They have a great understanding of grace and are a little bit too sacerdotal for my taste.

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But, you know, it's within Christianity. That's for sure. Okay. So what is the difference between this

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Lutheran Church and Presbyterian Church? What are the difference? Presbyterians are five point

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Calvinist where Lutherans are not. And Lutherans teach you can lose your salvation.

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Presbyterians would say no. There'll be some of the basic differences.

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Okay. Even Presbyterian USA is also five point Calvinist. You know, the liberal

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Presbyterian. No. PCUSA is basically an apostate false religion.

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It promotes homosexuality, women pastors and elders. I wouldn't call it a

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Christian denomination. Though there are Christian denominate. I'm a Christian churches within it that actually hold to the truth.

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But they're stuck in the PCUSA. Okay. So, you know, the whole college, like a

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Princeton University, PCUSA, right? I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. And one more question I was thinking about. I forgot. This Lutherans bow to the cross, bow down to the cross.

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I've never seen Lutherans bow down to a cross. I can't say no

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Lutheran does. But when I went to a Lutheran college and I checked out a Lutheran church,

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I never saw that. Okay. Can Lutherans have piercing or tattoos on that kind of tattoos?

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Are they permitted to in Lutheranism? I don't know if there's an official stand within the LCMS or other

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Lutheran denominations. The Wisconsin student. I don't know if they frown on it to obtaining them.

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But what if you become a Lutheran after you've been tattooed? I don't know the nuances of that. Okay. So LCMS and how many denominations they have?

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I don't know. There's ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, pretty liberal.

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There's the Wisconsin Synod. It's ultimate.

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I mean, it's not ultimate. It's exceedingly strict. I remember. I remember when

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I met a Wisconsin Synod person who said that if you weren't in the

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Wisconsin Synod Lutheran denomination, you couldn't be a Christian. And it was just absurd. So there are, you know, there's stuff like that all over the place.

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Do they have women pastors? Yes, the

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ELCA does. All right. LCMS does not. Unless you've changed.

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Okay. I haven't studied them in a few years. All right. All right. Thank you, sir. All right, man.

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Well, God bless. All right. All right. Now, we did have a caller waiting and he wanted advice.

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He's just left the church and wants some advice. That would have been an interesting conversation. We took too long. I'm sure he had to go.

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But if he is listening and you want to call back and discuss that, I'll get you on right away. And we have nobody waiting right now.

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So if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877 -207 -2276.

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If you are interested, you can also email me. Just direct an email to info at CARM .org.

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That's C -A -R -M dot O -R -G. Info at CARM .org. And in the subject line, just put radio question or radio comment.

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And we've got a few of them in there right now, which I can get to. But we know a caller is coming in, so I don't want to get into too much.

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Let's see. I have two adult kids. One is a dental assisting school and is thriving. She's responsible, driven, spunky.

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Then we have another child. He is so lost and lacking in direction. He refuses to go back to school for anything.

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He makes poor choices. And he's just, yeah, okay, driving you crazy. I pray and pray and pray.

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I see some work from God's hand in that situation, but not enough. Any advice? Yeah, keep praying. Keep praying.

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Be loving, be consistent, and pray. And if he's early 20s, give him a few years because the male brain doesn't really mature until about the age of 25.

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And then a year or two after that, they've got to put stuff together. And then they start acting like real adults and human beings.

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Women are about three, four years ahead of men on that as far as the physical maturity goes. So there's some advice.

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Okay, there you go. Let's get to Martin from Virginia. Martin, welcome. You're on the air.

30:58

Hey, Matt. Hey, thanks. Thanks for your ministry. Good to have you back live.

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Question on free will. Real quick. I've talked to a lot of people about free will and some say, hey, could you have done otherwise?

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Could you have chose differently? And that's just an example of free will.

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What is your opinion on that? Well, yeah, we get into logical possibilities, counterfactuals.

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So right now I'm wearing a black t -shirt. Could I have chosen differently? Yes, I could have. But I didn't.

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So wait a minute. If I had decided before I got up, I'm going to wear that black t -shirt.

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When I got up and got that black t -shirt, could I have decided to do something else? Well, yeah, but I already decided.

31:51

So am I restricting my choice? Yeah, I am by my free will. You got to be careful what we do with free will because it can be philosophically, logically difficult.

32:04

Okay? Right. So I'm trying to pair that with God's nature.

32:10

And God is not going to do something against God's nature. Right? He can't do it by his own nature.

32:18

Right. Right. But humans, you know, us, you and I, you know, we can choose otherwise.

32:28

We can make choices. Hold on. You said you kind of switched. God can't violate his nature.

32:34

However, humans can choose otherwise. Now, you made some statements and you related them together, but they're not related.

32:42

Clearly, let's just say it that way. We can make choices. You're right.

32:47

No, I get it. So let's say, you know, God can't sin, right? Right. But humans can't.

32:54

So that's where I'm correlating this to. Because God is just acting in a manner consistent with his nature.

33:00

We're acting in a manner consistent with our nature. We can sin. He can't. That's correct. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

33:06

No, exactly. And I'm totally with you on that. And I think in your description, I think the caller, the first caller was, if I'm not mistaken, about free will.

33:16

And you use the example of God as being the kind of the cornerstone of how we define free will.

33:23

But I think there's some nuance there between what God and what you and I have before us.

33:35

Free will must be defined in the nature of God. God can't choose to sin, but he's free.

33:42

So his freedom is consistent with his nature. So free will is the ability to make a choice not forced upon you, but is consistent with your nature.

33:50

That's what free will is. Yeah. It applies to everybody. And we've got a break. So hold on. Okay, man, we'll give you a break after the break.

33:55

Hey, folks, if you want to give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

34:01

We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276.

34:15

Here's Matt Slick. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Thanks for still listening.

34:21

And if you want, you can give me a call, 877 -207 -2276.

34:26

Martin, are you still there? I am, sir. Yep. All right. Okay. Now, where were we?

34:36

The question on free will and God's nature, how God cannot, you know, clearly go against, you know,

34:44

God can't sin. Correct. And how in our human nature, you know, we can't choose to sin.

34:49

We can choose to do otherwise. God, in God's sense, is not going to act in disaccord with God's nature.

35:00

He can't. It's impossible for anyone to violate their own nature because this is what they are.

35:09

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And you, I was picking up that that is the cornerstone of what free will is.

35:20

And it was laying the cornerstone of God's example of free will. But I was kind of trying to dovetail in how our nature allows us to choose otherwise.

35:33

We have a choice. We can sin, unfortunately. Yes. Right. Our nature is fallen.

35:42

God's nature is not. Our freedom is we're free to act according to our fallenness.

35:49

God is free to act according to his holiness. We can sin. Okay. Yeah. Unfortunately.

35:56

Yeah. You got that right. So much of that darkness growing here lately. That's for sure.

36:02

Yeah. No. Yeah. I just kind of want to kind of parlay that in. Yeah. Okay.

36:09

No problem. It's a tough life out there. And unfortunately, we are heading down a tough cliff with what's going on in the world right now.

36:17

Yes. And if you want, go to my website, look up signs of the end times and you'll get even more depressed.

36:25

Okay. All right, Matt. God bless. All right.

36:31

God bless. All right. Now let's get to Heidi from North Carolina.

36:37

Heidi, welcome. You're on the air. Hi, Matt. Thanks for taking my call.

36:42

Sure. I think the screener wrote my question down.

36:49

But if I could expand on my question a little bit more, my children and I and a couple other homeschoolers have been discussing the will this year.

37:01

And my question is, after listening to R .C. Sproul's Chosen by God, he kind of piggybacks off of,

37:11

I believe, Augustine and Jonathan Edwards and their books, Bonded with the Will and Free Will.

37:17

So the way I'm understanding the will, according to R .C. Sproul, is that our will was, our moral will was broken after the fall.

37:27

Correct? Yeah. In the sense that we are affected by sin in every part of what we are.

37:34

And so our choices are always going to be affected by sin. So is there, because like R .C.

37:42

Sproul kind of delineates between like a moral will and then more of a like an everyday will.

37:49

I don't know how you would categorize it, but that's my understanding when he explains it. Yeah, I would like his post way, but I think there's a differentiation that may not be warranted there, but depends on how far he wants to go into it.

38:02

I believe that every action we do, even when we add two plus two equals four. I believe that's moral.

38:08

And the reason I do is because every truth ultimately comes from God who is holy and truth is related to his character and his character is holy, which is a moral thing.

38:19

So all truth values are related to the holiness of God. And therefore we ought morally even to believe two plus two equals four because it's an issue of truth that rests in the very heart of God.

38:31

It's a moral obligation to believe God. So therefore, all truth values, no matter what they are, even mathematics ultimately are moral.

38:39

So that's how much my view. Okay. So are you familiar with like the bondage of the will and yeah,

38:49

I read them. So do you do Augustine and Edwards see the will as such in your understanding?

38:58

You know, to be honest, it's been so long since I read Augustine on that and Edwards on it that I couldn't tell you at the top of my head what their related views and nuances are.

39:09

So I'm not sure how to answer that one because of that. But I have read Edwards and Luther and Sproul.

39:17

And I had the privilege of meeting Sproul once in seminary. It was nice. But as far as our wills go, you know, is there a differentiation in our nature as a moral will versus an intellectual will?

39:31

I could see the distinctions between them. But I think they're ultimately connected to all morality or all truth values rest in God.

39:42

So I think Sproul would have agreed with that. So I guess

39:52

I'm trying to understand what you were sharing today with the other callers, like this compatibility thing that, you know, if our

39:57

I do believe in the doctrines of grace, but I'm trying to understand and expand,

40:03

I guess, my understanding a little bit more, especially when talking with one of my more interested children.

40:12

Yeah, just kind of the nuances of that, because I was explaining it kind of along the lines of my understanding with that little delineation between our moral will and then the other will.

40:27

I'm not sure. And that's fine. But the view that I just shared with you is something

40:34

I've developed over the past couple of years while talking to atheists. When we got into the discussion once about the issue of where the transcendental necessity of the laws of logic arrived from in mathematics based on them, are we obligated to believe these truths?

40:51

Yes, we are, if they come from God, because all truth comes from God. And any truth value that is anything that's a lie is sinful.

41:00

So to say two plus two is five, is it a lie? You can see the question that, you know, it's an interesting discussion at this point.

41:10

But so we do have aspects of our will and we can divide them up like we do with God.

41:16

We say God has a decretive will, a prescriptive will, and a permissive will. The decretive will is he decrees what will come to pass by his, you know, his action.

41:26

Let there be light. The prescriptive will is you shall not lie. The permissive will is he lets you lie.

41:33

He wills to let you lie. So we can divide that up in that sense and we can get more precision when we talk about aspects.

41:42

So if we're to do the same thing with the idea of a moral will that we perceive in ourselves, well, then, yeah, and there's an intellectual will, so to speak.

41:51

Yes. Are they independent of each other? And the answer has to be here, no, they're not.

41:57

They're interrelated because they all derive out of our same essence of what it is to be a person. Amen.

42:03

The image of God. OK. All right. That helps. OK, so.

42:11

So would it be correct to say that Adam and Eve had a true free will unaffected by sin at that point?

42:21

They had a true free will both before and after their sin, because free will is the ability to make a choice that's not forced on you, that's consistent with your nature.

42:32

And that definition I use because it's based in God's character, not man. God's a standard of truth, not us.

42:39

So God cannot sin. And so but yet he's free. So we have to define free will with that in mind, that the ability to make a choice that's not forced on you, that's consistent with your nature.

42:52

Generated out of yourself. I guess I'm just having a problem with that, considering,

42:59

I guess, along like the bondage of the will, like the will was no longer free after Adam and Eve.

43:05

No, no, no, no, no, no. They're still free. But the freedom is restricted.

43:12

The abilities are restricted to sinfulness in the unbeliever. This is why definitions are so important.

43:21

If we define, I mean, very precise free will is the ability to make a choice consistent with your nature that's not forced on you.

43:30

If we use that, then everybody has free will. OK, great. Now we could look at, well, what's the extent of the free will of an unbeliever?

43:40

So one of the ways I illustrated is I say there's a house and you're free to move in the house and outside is a yard and around that yard is a perimeter fence.

43:50

And the believer, his perimeter fence is like a mile across. The unbeliever is like, you know, half a mile across.

43:59

He's free to operate according to his nature without being forced. But his his range of choices are affected.

44:06

You see, you can only choose to do what you're aware of. You have to make a choice that's consistent with your nature, but you have to be able to be aware of something in order to make a decision about it.

44:20

So if I were to say to you, for example, choose the statement that I'm thinking about, is it true or false?

44:26

And I don't tell you what the statement is. You can't make a choice and judge its truth or falsity because you're not aware of what it actually is.

44:34

But if I were to say to you, there's an ice cream factory in the fourth largest moon of Jupiter, you'd say, oh,

44:39

I don't believe that. Now you can make an assessment because now you're aware of it. So the ability to make a choice is consistent with the ability to be aware of something.

44:49

So what what's the awareness ability of an unbeliever? Is he aware of the presence of God within his own heart?

44:56

No, he's not. So he is not going to be able to make choices consistent with the things he cannot be aware of.

45:03

He doesn't have that ability. His nature restricts his freedom, but he's still free within that realm.

45:10

OK. So do you have this explained? Yes. Yes.

45:18

If you go to my website, Calvinist Corner dot com, Calvinist Corner dot com.

45:25

Let me see, find the article there. Calvinist Corner dot com. And I think, yeah, what is free will?

45:34

And I go through there and I talk about conception of an idea. Desire related to that conception, the choice related to that desire and the accomplishment related to the choice.

45:48

So in order to be able to make a choice to accomplish something, you have to be in the desire for it.

45:54

But you have in order to have a desire for something, you have to be aware of it. So how do you have a desire for something you have no concept of or awareness of?

46:03

So free will must begin with the issue of conception in this we're talking about so so far here that with our our conceivability, we can then make choices related to what we're conceiving, like I would like to have a brand new twenty twenty four

46:21

Corvette. That's my concept I'm aware of. I desire it. I can choose to go get it.

46:29

I may not be able to accomplish that choice with my finances, but I can have a conception and then a desire and then a choice and then hopefully the accomplishment.

46:42

But here's something else I conceive now of flapping my arms and flying to the moon and I desire to flap my my arms and fly to the moon.

46:51

I'm now going to go outside and choose to flap my arms and fly to the moon, but I can't accomplish it.

46:59

So my free will is not restricted in order to choose something is not restricted by my ability to accomplish it.

47:07

I can choose to want to do something, but not being able to do it doesn't mean

47:12

I don't have the free will to choose it. Some people think that if you can't choose it and accomplish it, excuse me, if you can't accomplish it, then you don't have free will choice.

47:23

That's not true. That's not the case. I choose to go in and make the best meal

47:29

I've ever made for my wife tonight when I cook her a great meal and it tastes like crud.

47:35

See the relationship between choice and accomplishment. We're out of time. We call back tomorrow.

47:41

We continue with this. OK. All right. All right. At the same time, Heidi, we can say thank you so much.

47:49

All right. God bless. OK. Hey, there you go, folks. Hope you enjoyed the show. We're back on air tomorrow by God's grace.