Calvinism Defended Part II

 

By 

 

John Orlando

 

What follows is the full text of the second e-mail exchange I had with Bill concerning Calvinism (you can view the first one here.).  It is 88 pages long.  In this exchange, I provide a fair amount exposition and commentary on a number of passages related to each of the 5 points of Calvinism, as well as many passages dealing with the sovereignty of God.  

 

I have this exchange broken down into various parts elsewhere on the site for ease of reading and organization.  You can go to the Table of Contents to see that, and you will be able to click on whatever particular part of the exchange you might be interested in.  Or, you can just start reading here, and brave the waters of the full 88 pages :-)

 

My new comments in the exchange below are in blue font.  I also included the parts of my first e-mail (in black font) that Bill responded that I thought were relevant and would help the reader follow the exchange better. Bill's comments are in red font.  

 

Greeting Bill,

 

Below is my response to your second e-mail.  I apologize for the time it has taken me to respond.  My family and I were in the process of relocated to Pennsylvania from Texas when I received your response.  When we moved, I had to look for job, etc., plus, your comments required quite a bit of response.  Anyway, the comments from my first e-mail to you are in black font.  I only included the relevant texts from that.  Your response to that follows in red font, and my response to that follows in the dark blue font (that I am currently writing this in).

 

 

-- I know what you mean when you say, “if what you say is true…,” I just wanted to state in no uncertain terms that I am trying to accurately state what the Bible teaches regarding these matters.  In other words, I’m not merely offering my opinion.   I think you would agree that what I have to say, divorced from the infallible Truth of God and His Word is, let’s say…totally irrelevant.  Obviously, the task of faithfully teaching what God Himself says about any matter is a task that is not to be taken lightly, for we are handling the very Word of God, and with regard to these issues, we are stating things that have a direct bearing on the very nature of God Himself.   

 

Yes, you understood what I was saying.  If you are accurately stating what the Bible says, why wasn’t Calvinism formulated solely by quoting scripture:

·        Total Depravity

·        Irresistible Grace

 

First, to say that Calvinism was “formulated” is a bit of a misnomer.  The Reformers

were attempting to “reform” the church (Roman Catholic) because of their commitment to the truth of the Bible, hence, the formal cause of the Reformation, Sola Scriptura, which holds that the Word of God is the sole infallible rule and guide for faith and practice (a principle which you also seem to find quite acceptable).

 

               The Reformers appealed first and foremost to Scripture, provided exegesis of key texts, and stated in no uncertain terms what precisely the Gospel was based on the exegesis of Scripture, not human wisdom, philosophical speculation, or the decisions of Councils from the past.  Their teaching was derived first and foremost from the infallible and inerrant Word of God, and, I believe that they demonstrated that their teaching concerning these matters were in fact the orthodox Christian view. 

 

               While they rested their case on Scripture, they also demonstrated that their understanding wasn’t something new in the history of the church, but had in fact been the basic understanding of the church (East and West) throughout the ages, with Augustine of course being the key church father that they referenced, since he more than any other spoke most clearly to the issues at hand (by the way, they had much to say in disagreement with Augustine as well, e.g., they did not accept his view on the nature of the church, the nature of the sacraments, etc. You will also note that East and West were still united at the time of Augustine).

 

               While some might criticize them for doing this, we must again recognize the historical setting and culture in which they lived, and to whom and what it was they were reacting to.  If one was going to try to reform the Roman Church, they certainly could not expect to be very successful if they completely ignored what any and all of the church fathers said prior to that point.  Instead of ignoring the past, they were able to use Augustine, the most respected teacher of at least the Roman church at that time (along with Aquinas), against Rome.  Their method went something like this:  “The Bible plainly teaches “X,” but you reject that because I am the one saying that it teaches “X.”  Okay, fine.  Not only do I maintain that it teaches “X,” but so did this teacher, whom you consider to be one of the greatest teachers in the church, and whom the church counsel (Counsel of Orange) actually sided with when these similar issues were a point of controversy during Augustine’s time.”

 

               In doing all of this, they demonstrated first and foremost that their position is drawn from and based on Scripture alone, and they (and obviously all those who follow in their train), believe that they are correct in what the Bible teaches concerning these matters.  That being the case, from their perspective, their position is merely the position of Jesus, Paul, and the entire Bible.  They then demonstrated that their analysis has strong support in church history.

 

               Thus, if you read Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, and Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, you will discover that they are not merely stating things “willy-nilly,” but are dealing with one Biblical text after another in making their point, as well as showing how their conclusions were indeed in accord with biblical Christianity through the centuries. 

 

               Secondly, as I believe I stated in my article that you read, if someone were to ask Calvin about “Calvinism” and the so-called “Five points of Calvinism,” Calvin would have looked at them, I’m sure, a bit confused.  That’s because the so-called Five Points were not articulated in that manner until years after his death.  It was at the Synod of Dordt (1618 AD), in response to the Five Articles of Remonstrance, that the Reformed Church responded, and that response become known as TULIP, not because the phrase “TULIP” is found in the Bible, but because this simple little acronym could be used by folks as a means to remember the clear difference and teaching of the Reformed Church and the Arminians on what the Bible teaches with regard to the nature of man (T), God’s sovereignty in salvation (U), Christ’s perfect work on the cross (L), the Holy Spirit’s perfect and omnipotent power in bringing spiritually dead sinners to spiritual life (I), and God’s preserving His people until the very end, for Jesus is both the author and the finisher of our faith (P).  

 

               As for why the word “tulip;” an interesting anecdote is that it just so happens that the most common flower in the Netherlands (where the Remonstrant controversy raged) is…the tulip.  So, what we have then is a response by the Reformed church against the five articles of remonstrance.  Had it not been for that Remonstrance five articles, there never would have been “TULIP” in the sense that we have it today (hence, your objection later that Manicheans actually taught these things, using the same acronym “TULIP” is simply inaccurate).  Also, when you ask why they did not just quote Scripture in making their case, I’m sorry Bill, but either you have never read the Reformers, or you have simply ignored what was being said due to your bias against their teaching.  If you pick up a copy of Calvin’s Institutes, for example, and read what he wrote, you will find one Scriptural reference after another (not to mention exposition).  Then, if you turn to the back to Scripture index, you will find the mountain of biblical texts that are referenced, drawn from every book of the Bible except Esther (I’m sure we can excuse Calvin here, since, after all, not even Jesus referred to Esther). It is truly amazing to see the full breadth and scope of Calvin’s appeal to Scripture.  In Luther’s relatively small book, The Bondage of Will, he references approximately 386 different passages from 41 books of the Bible. 

 

               As for me, I am not a “Calvinist” because Calvin taught something.  As a matter of fact, I had never read one word by Calvin before becoming a “Calvinist.”  I became a Calvinist because I was convinced that the testimony of Scripture taught that man is dead in his trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1) and because of this deadness in sin, there is none righteous, no not one, there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God (Rom 3:10-11), and as such the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he (that is, he is not able) to know them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14).  Hence, no one can come to Christ (i.e., no one is able, John 6:44)), it is only those to whom it has been granted and whom the Spirit has enabled (John 6:44; 65)--that is, it is all those that the Father has given to Christ—all those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4)-- that come to Christ (John 6:37), and it is these alone that Christ laid down His life for (Matt 1:21; John 10:11, 15), and became for them wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor 1:30), and all those chosen in Christ from before the foundation in the world will persevere to the end, because He is the author and finisher of their faith (Heb 12:2), and He gives His sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, because He who began the good work in them will complete it the end (Phil 1:6).  You can read more of my testimony on why I am a Calvinist at http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/whycalvinist. 

 

               In conclusion of this point, your comment, Bill, of “why wasn’t Calvinism formulated solely by quoting scripture,” is incorrect, both from a historical perspective, and a theological perspective.  I hope that what I have stated clears up that matter at least in your thinking, and hopefully just interaction with the Scriptural texts would take place.  As for the texts, quite honestly I simply have not found plausible counter-exegesis of the texts in question that is able to both refute the exegetical arguments of the Reformers as it pertains to these matters, and then establish the non-Reformed understanding of those texts.  I am a Calvinist because I believe that the Scripture teaches what I briefly noted above, and for me, Luther’s words bode well: “Unless I am convinced by Sacred Scripture or by evident reason, I cannot recant. For my conscience is held captive by the Word of God and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe...”  By the way, I’m sure Luther’s words bode well for you as well, since you made your appeal to Scripture.  See, there’s at least 1 thing about Luther and the Reformers that you agree with and may actually like. J

 

The above terms are quoted as if they were scripture in your article.  They are not scripture. They are the fallible, erroneous, vain teaching of men.  Scripture is the divine revelation.

 

            -- If in my article I made it seem as though TULIP were all words that were in the Bible, my apologies.  I know that when I provided the acronym, I did not provide the Scripture references upon which each point is based.  I will be adding the Scriptural citations to those in the near future to alleviate any confusion.  For the record, I have stated on more than one occasion that the acronym TULIP is more trouble than it’s worth because it is given to much misunderstanding (which, in our discussion, it has proven to be so once again). 

 

As for the words themselves (total depravity, unconditional election, etc.), they are simply words used to concisely convey or state truths concerning certain truths taught in the Bible.  There is nothing wrong with that; as a matter of fact, it is impossible to avoid, as you yourself demonstrate a bit later by using such terms as “triune” and “Trinity.” 

 

For now, let me try to clarify further what is meant be each term.  I will deal with a handful of passages on each point:

 

Total Depravity: Here we are using a term to summarize what we believe the overall teaching of the Bible is with regard to the nature of man after the fall of Adam and Eve.  We believe that the Bible teaches that man is “totally depraved,” that is, man’s total being (his mind, emotions, will, body, etc.) have been corrupted as a result of sin.  There is no part of man that has escaped this corruption.  We are conceived in sin, born in sin, and are sinners from the start.  We sin because we are sinners.  Here are just a few of the passages that speak to just how radical and extensive the corruption of our nature is:

 

Psalm 51:5  “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

            -- This verse calls attention to the fact of original sin, and that man’s very nature is “shapen” in iniquity and sin.  If this is our state from the start, how is it that we can overcome it?  David answers the question for us in verse 10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.”   Notice the word “create.”  This is something God must initiate and forge within us, because it is something that it totally foreign to us.  Just as God, when He created the universe, did not fashion preexistent material to form the universe, neither does God use elements that already reside within humans to bring about a clean heart.  Creation by God is always “ex-nihilo” (out of nothing).  God doesn’t take a stony heart and make it better; He removes the stony heart and replaces it with a heart of flesh. 

 

Jeremiah 13:23 “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”

            -- We who are evil can no more change ourselves, or incline ourselves to spiritual good, than a person can change the color of his skin.  To put it another way, it is impossible for fallen human beings to do ultimate good (and the ultimate spiritual good is receiving Christ).  To put it yet another way, man lacks the moral ability to do the ultimate spiritual good.  To put it yet another way, “No one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him.” (John 6:65)

 

Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

            --  Again, the heart has nothing in it that would enable it to desire that which is spiritually good.  Notice as well, it isn’t that man’s heart has some wickedness in it; rather, it is desperately wicked.  The Bible elsewhere uses the term “dead” to describe the nature of fallen humanity (Eph 2:1).  Traditional non-Reformation thought says that man just needs some medicine that can make him better.  There is a problem here though, because this says that man is incurably sick.  What is the remedy?  The remedy is a heart transplant.  Can a man perform a heart transplant on himself?  Of course not.  The one who is qualified, i.e., the doctor, must perform the operation.  Even if the man brought himself to the operating room, and administered the anesthetic to himself, he would still be unable to perform the operation.  Only the doctor can do this.  Natural man, through the convincing power of the Holy Spirit, can be made aware of his dreadful condition, and even go to the doctor to see about getting the cure (notice, he doesn’t even do this on his own, but only by the convincing power of the Spirit).  But only the doctor has the ability to cure the person through the transplant of the heart. 

 

Matthew 7:16-18 “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? [17] Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. [18] A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.”

            --  There are only two types of trees.  All of mankind, outside of Christ, are corrupt trees.  Notice, a corrupt tree cannot (i.e., it is not able) to bring forth good fruit.  What is the ultimate good fruit that a person (tree) can bear?  Initially, it is the fruit of saving faith, i.e., embracing Christ.  As Jesus says, “This is the work of God:  to believe in the One whom He has sent.”  Where is “free will?”  The will of a fallen sinner is only free to choose that which is in accordance with his nature, and can only bring forth one thing:  corrupt fruit.  It is only when the fallen sinner’s will has been liberated by virtue of having been made a new creature that he can choose the ultimate spiritual good.

 

Matthew 12:34  “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”

            -- The greatest thing a fallen human being would ever speak would be to confess unto salvation that Jesus Christ is Lord and was risen from the grave.  But, as Jesus says, how are we, who are evil, able to “speak good things?”  The abundance of the human heart is, as Jeremiah has told us, desperately wicked, and the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “full of evil and madness.”

 

John 6:44 “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

            -- Who is Jesus referring to when He says “no man?”  Obviously, every single person.  What does the verse say with regard to every single person?  It says every single person is unable to come to Jesus.  What is the final state of those who are drawn by the Father?  They are “raised up at the last day.”  Is every single person who ever has or will live raised up on the last day unto salvation?  No.  Only those who have been drawn by the Father are, hence, every single person who ever has or will live has not, nor will be, drawn by the Father.  Who is it ultimately that is drawn by the Father?  Only those give the Jesus by the Father (John 6:37). 

 

John 6:65 “And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”

            -- How is it then that a fallen person who is unable to come to Jesus ever going to have any hope of coming Jesus?  It must be given unto him, or, as the NIV translates, “unless the Father has enabled him.” Does the Father do this for every single person?  No, He does this only for those that He has given to Jesus, as the Lord Himself testifies: “All that Father has given Me will come to Me…” (John 6:37), and in John 6:44, all those that are drawn are (not might be) raised up.  By the way, the word “draw” in John 6:44 does not convey the idea of “wooing.”  Rather, it is the same word that is translated elsewhere as “drag.”  A better picture is that of a fisherman dragging his net to scoop up a school of fish that he can clearly see.  I elaborate much more on this in my article which you claim to have read (I say “claim to have read” because as I read your response, I find very little interaction with what I stated there).

 

John 8:43-44 [43] “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.  [44]Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

            -- Again we see the inherent inability of the human heart to heed the words of Jesus.  Why is it that people do not come to Christ? Because they “cannot hear.”  Notice as well that they are of their father the devil.  Ultimately, there are essentially only two groups of people:  the children of God and the children of the devil.  In Ephesians 2:1-4, Paul tells us that we, like the rest, were subject to the “prince of the power of the air” (Satan), obeying the lusts of the flesh, and were, by nature, objects of God’s wrath.  So, what is the difference between us and those who remain in that condition, i.e., the rest?  Paul tells us in verse 4, “But God…made us alive…”  God is the difference, not us.  God and His grace is the determinative factor and cause of our salvation, not us.  It wasn’t the power of our free will decision, rather, it was the power of God that made us alive and gave us that ability to make a decision for Him. 

 

Many more passages could be offered, and I did not include some of the more popular ones such as Rom 3:10-18, Rom 8:7, 1 Cor 2:14, and Eph 2:1-4.

 

Here are a couple of quotes from the 19th century Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, that really put this into perspective:

 

 “When you say, “Can God make me become a Christian?” I tell you yes, for herein rests the power of the gospel. It does not ask your consent; but it gets it. It does not say, “Will you have it?” but it makes you willing in the day of God’s power...The gospel wants not your consent, it gets it. It knocks the enmity out of your heart. You say, I do not want to be saved; Christ says you shall be. He makes our will turn round, and then you cry, “Lord save, or I perish!”

 

“Oh!” saith the Arminian, “men may be saved if they will.” We reply, “My dear sir, we all believe that; but it is just the “if they will” that is the difficulty. We assert that no man will come to Christ unless he be drawn; nay, we do not assert it, but Christ himself declares it—“Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;’ and as long as that “ye will not come’ stands on record in Holy Scripture, we shall not be brought to believe in any doctrine of the freedom of the human will.” It is strange how people, when talking about free-will, talk of things which they do not at all understand. “Now,” says one, “I believe men can be saved if they will.” My dear sir, that is not the question at all. The question is, are men ever found naturally willing to submit to the humbling terms of the gospel of Christ? We declare, upon Scriptural authority, that the human will is so desperately set on mischief, so depraved, and so inclined to everything that is evil, and so disinclined to everything that is good, that without the powerful, supernatural, irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit, no human will ever be constrained towards Christ. You reply, that men sometimes are willing, without the help of the Holy Spirit. I answer—Did you ever meet with any person who was?... “

 

(http://www.efn.org/%7Edavidc/inability.html)

 

            In conclusion of this point, Bill, you objected to the fact that we use such terms as “Total Depravity,” etc.  Well, I’m sure you’d agree that instead of quoting every single passage and providing exegesis of each one, using the phrase “Total Depravity,” etc., is beneficial for the purpose of stating in as clear and succinct a way as possible what we believe the whole scope Scripture teaches with regard to the nature man, etc.  The simply fact of the matter is that we would never be able to engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue about the contents of Scripture if we did not use other words that are not found in the pages of Scripture to summarize key things taught in the Bible. Frankly, I’m surprised that I even need to point this out, especially since you do the very same thing. 

 

In terms of the nature of man, we are still created in the image of God.  The problem is that the image has been seriously marred and defaced (Jer 18:1-4).  We still think, feel, have desires, and make choices, etc.  However, our thinking is fallen thinking (i.e., it is darkened).  Our feelings are distorted.  Our desires are wholly disinclined from God and wholly in bondage to our nature, and as such the only choices we can make are those that are in accordance with our nature, which is corrupted by sin, which means that as it relates to the ultimate spiritual good, the only choices we can make in our natural state is a sinful choice.  To summarize the Reformed understanding of the human nature then, we would say:

1.  All men are created in the image of God

2.  That image has been seriously marred and defaced due to the fall of Adam and Eve.

3.  As a result of the fall, every facet of our humanity (body, soul, emotions, will, etc.) has been radically corrupted by sin. 

            4.  We still retain the ability to think, but our thinking is darkened.  We still retain the ability to have desires, but our desires are polluted and bound to our nature.  We still retain the ability to make choices, however, since the choices we make are those which flow from our desires, and our desires are polluted because our nature is as well, the only choice we are capable of making is a polluted choice as it pertains to spiritual matters.

 

            I will speak more about the image of God a bit later.

 

Unconditional Election:  We use this term to describe the teaching of the Bible that God has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted to all who were chosen in Christ for the adoption of sons before time even began.  Thus, election is unconditional; God’s choice to redeem a sinner is not conditioned on anything good, either actual or foreseen (for there is no good, actual or foreseen in a sinner), but on something good in God, namely, His undeserved favor.  A term that might bring this truth to better light that I have come up with is Undeserved Election. This states the matter even more clearly in my mind in that it completely robs man of any chance for boasting, for if you receive something that you do not deserve, then obviously it was not received on the basis of something good in you.  Here are some texts for your consideration:

Matthew 24:31 “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

-- This verse, which deals with the end times, calls attention to the fact that there is a set number of people from among the human race whom God has chosen to save.  He will gather all of these people, and only these people, not every single person who ever has or ever will live.  The elect are gathered from the “four winds…from one end of heaven to the other,”(a rather  poetic way of saying “the world.”).  God’s elect are scattered all over the world, from every nation, tribe, and tongue, and it is God who is gathering His sheep.  There are a couple of things to note in this verse as related to the discussion:

1.  The word “elect” – The first thing to notice is that there is such a thing as the “elect.”  That is not an Augustinian idea, but a “God” idea.  The second thing to notice is that the “elect” are called “His” elect.  The little word “His” conveys possession.  The elect are the possession of God.  Third, since this “elect” which God owns is being gathered by Him, that means that the elect is comprised of something, and the “something” that comprise the elect is people out of every tribe and tongue and nation. Fourth, the very nature of the word “elect.”  When you elect something you choose something.  God has chosen something, namely, people out of every tribe, and tongue, and nation, as His own special possession.  Why did God choose these ones?  Was it because they were better or smarter or wiser than the ones not chosen?  No.  Those who are chosen are chosen solely on the basis of the kind intention of God’s will and grace alone, according to His purpose.  When did this election occur?  Before the foundation of the world, before anyone did either good or bad. 

Mark 13:20 “Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days.”

            -- Notice again that this “elect” is a group of people that He chose.  It is not man’s “freewill” that God is zealous to care for, rather, His primary concern among the inhabitants of the earth are His people, His sheep, His church, His beloved, His bride, His elect.  The Apostle Paul echoes this, when he says, “I endure all things for the sake of the elect.” (2 Tim 2:10).

John 13:18  “I do not speak of all of you.  I know the ones I chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, but He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.  From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur you may believe that I am He.”

            --  If Jesus knows the ones He has chosen, could those chosen “choose” not to be “chosen?”  Where is their “freewill” if they cannot choose to not be chosen?

John 15:16  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.

            -- Election is not on the basis of our choice, but God’s.  We love Him because he first loved us.  And, this election will produce results (fruit) in the lives of those chosen.  The purpose of election isn’t so that the elect can sit around and pat themselves on the back for being “elect” (as a matter of fact, this would be the case in a non-Reformed understanding of election, because the non-Reformed locate the basis for one’s election in the individual himself (his act of foreseen faith, for example), instead of on the undeserved favor of God bestowed them.  In unconditional election, every vestige of human boasting is utterly demolished, while in the non-Reformed view, every vestige of human boasting is exalted and magnified.  One view of election praises the unspeakable grace of God and His altogether wise purpose alone, the other praises the ingenuity of man.

Acts 13:48 (Also used to prove effectual calling) “When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”

            -- Only those who were appointed to eternal life believed.  Here we see a couple of important truths.  First, the appointment to eternal life precedes belief.  This calls attention to the key axiom of Reformation theology “regeneration precedes faith.”  The non-Reformed view reverses this process; it states that faith precedes regeneration.  Thus, the non-Reformed evangelist will say, “You need to believe in Christ so that you can be born again,” whereas the Bible teaches that one must be born again before they can even see the kingdom of God (John 3:3), and that this act of being born again is not brought about by the will of flesh, but of God (John 1:13).  The non-Reformed view reverses the process. If the non-Reformed view was true, the passage should read, “and as many believed were appointed to eternal life.”  But, the passage doesn’t say that.  It says the exact opposite.  Only the Reformed view can provide us with an accurate understanding of this passage. 

Second, it calls attention to the fact that not every single person who heard the message believed.  The question is, why didn’t they?  Was it because the ones who did believe were smarter, or more righteous than those who did not believe?  No.  The verse tells us, “those who were appointed…believed.”  God is the sovereign of the universe, and He and He alone determines who will and will not be saved, not on the basis of anything in the individual, but on the basis of His own good pleasure and sovereign will alone.  This is precisely what the Reformed view teaches, and what the non-Reformed view denies.  The non-Reformed view teaches first that God appoints those to eternal life who believe (denying the truth of this verse and many other passages), and that God determines who He will save not on the basis of His own sovereign will, but on the basis of a foreseen act of faith by the individual.  The individual thus “earns” salvation because he was chosen on the basis of something good he does.  In the Biblical view, those who were appointed have no room for boasting, because the only reason they did in fact believe was because they had been appointed by God for that very thing.

Third, the number of those who are saved and are not saved is set, and has been determined by God from all eternity.  Out of all the people who heard the message, not every single person believed.  Why not?  Weren’t they all given the same “opportunity”?  Yes and no.  The opportunity for salvation has appeared to people from every nation, however, only those whom God has appointed from all eternity act on the opportunity.  What about the “freewill” of those who were not appointed?  If they were not appointed to eternal life, then they obviously could not choose eternal life.  They of necessity had to reject the message, which means “freewill” is not nearly as “free” as many seem to think.

Fourth, every single person who was appointed (ordained) to eternal life did in fact believe.  God’s plan of salvation is perfect, because none of those whom He ordained to eternal life would be, or could be, lost.  All (every single person) whom God has chosen to be saved from all eternity will, without a doubt, be saved.  The non-Reformed view cannot make that claim.  They claim that God has chosen to save every single person who ever has or ever will live, yet, many of those same persons are never saved.  According to this view then, God has failed to do something that He had chosen to do.  Is this the picture we get of the God of the Bible?  Certainly not.  It is clear that what God has chosen to do He most certainly will do, and there is no power in heaven, or on earth, or in the earth below that can stop Him.  This is what the Bible teaches, this is what the Reformed view teaches, and to God alone be the glory.

Acts 22:14 “And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.”

            -- If there were ever a poster-child for the fact that God’s choice of persons is completely unconditional, surely it is the murderous Saul of Tarsus.  God didn’t choose Saul because He foresaw that God would choose Him, rather, He chose Saul, and as result of God’s choosing of Saul, Saul “knew God’s will, and saw that Just One, and heard the voice of His mouth,” and the scales fell from his eyes, and he became Paul.  Paul would later write, “But by the grace of God I am what I am,” (1 Cor 15:10) (note, he doesn’t say, “but by my freewill decision I am what Iam), and “God has chosen…the base things of the world and the things which are despised…to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.” (1 Cor 1:29), and “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus…he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:30-31).  To think for one moment that the basis of God’s choosing of Saul was due to something good in Saul, or some act of foreseen faith in Saul, is to be taken aloft to the highest peaks of mythology and to be lost in the clouds of willful ignorance and disobedience to the clear teaching of Scripture to the contrary, not only with regard to God’s choice of Saul, but to God’s choice of every person who is ever brought to a place of saving faith in Christ.

    Romans 8:28-30  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

This passage has been referred to by many commentators as the golden chain of salvation; a chain that cannot be broken because it was created and is maintained by a sovereign God. Paul says that those called according to God’s purpose are those whom God foreknew and predestined.  Who are those He foreknew and predestined?  It is the sheep that were given to Christ by the Father “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4).  It is these that He calls, and this calling is effectual; it never fails to bring about God’s desired effect, as Paul says, “whom He called, He also justified.” Paul then tells us that all those that God justifies, He glorifies.

 

Paul says, “called according to His purpose”, and “those.”  With these words, Paul is describing a particular group of people, i.e., those who are “called according to His purpose,” and it is “those” that he is speaking about (“those” He called; “those” He justified; “those” He glorified).  This is significant because this does not refer to every single person who ever has or ever will live.  Nor does it refer to every single person who becomes a member of the church, nor every single person who makes a profession of faith. 

 

As mentioned above, this group referred to as being “called according to His purpose” are those who have been chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4); who were given to Jesus by the Father, and are referred to by Jesus as His sheep, and the “elect” (Matt 24:22,31; Rom 11:7; 1 Pet 1:2; 1 Pet 2:6). 

 

Paul goes on to say some incredible things about this group of people.  First, he says that God “foreknew” them.  This foreknowing has to do with knowing them in a relationship of love; it does not refer to knowing the actions of the persons.  Although God does know all things, and knows what we will do before we do it, the concept of foreknowledge as it relates to salvation does not refer to this kind of knowledge.  It refers to an intimate relational knowledge of persons, not actions.  In other words, God did not choose us in Christ before the foundation of the world because He looked down the corridor of time, and foresaw/foreknew that we would first choose Him.  Rather, those whom God was pleased to save were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world solely on the basis of His grace and purpose alone, and it is in this sense that He “foreknew” us…He foreknew us in Christ (Eph 1:4). 

 

Paul then says that these ones whom He foreknew have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ (and ultimate salvation).  Predestined simply means to know and mark out the destination beforehand.  Something that is predestined by God must and will certainly occur.  In this case, those whom God foreknew (i.e., His sheep/the elect) have been predestined ultimately for glorification—it cannot be otherwise for them, which utterly destroys the concept of libertarian free will.  This is further solidified by Paul when he says, “moreover, whom He predestined, these He called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified; these He also glorified.”  Notice the chain:  every single person whom He predestined is called.   This calling is a special calling that never fails to bring about its desired effects, namely, those He called, He also justified.  Justification is an instantaneous act that occurs the moment a person places saving faith in Christ whereby the person is declared righteous before God, on account of having the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to them (which, if I am reading you correctly,  you evidently deny as well).  Thus, we also see that in order to exercise the kind of faith that justifies, one must first experience the internal calling.  The internal calling is known by other terms such as regeneration, or being born again.  You see, saving faith doesn’t result in one being born again; being born again results in saving faith.  And all these who are justified will be glorified. 

 

Glorification relates to our ultimate state whereby Jesus will, as He said in John 6:39, “…raise [us] up at the last day.”  It is where we receive our resurrected and glorified bodies, and the final state of our salvation (1 Cor 15:35-54).  To summarize, every single person who is counted as one of “the called according to His purpose” are foreknown by God, predestined by God, and will, not might, be called, justified, and glorified, and the One who accomplishes all of this is God.  Where is libertarian freewill here?  Do those who are predestined as such have the ability to choose otherwise?  Or, do those who are not predestined as such have the ability to choose to be among those “foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified?”   If not, then libertarian freewill is proven, once again, to be what it truly is:  a pagan, humanistic philosophical myth devised by prideful humans to enthrone humans and dethrone God.  

Paul then solidifies his argument in Rom 8:31-33, “If God be for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”  The “us” and the “all” that Paul is referring to is those whom Paul has been talking to and about, the elect, as Paul’s states clearly in verse 33, “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.”  Justification is linked directly to Christ’s work of atonement, and Christ’s work of atonement is linked particularly to the elect, Christ’s sheep.  As Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd, and I know My sheep, and am known by My own…and I lay down My life for the sheep…”  It is by Christ’s atoning grace that He purchases His sheep, and procures all things related to their salvation.  He has set His love on His sheep from and for all eternity.  One other point here to recognize is that Paul speaks of the “elect.”  When does a person become a part of the “elect?”  Paul tells us in Eph 1:4 that we were chosen in Christ, “before the foundation of the world.”

 Ephesians 1:4-5   “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons though Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.”

            -- Augustine didn’t write this.  Luther didn’t write it.  Calvin didn’t write it.  Nor did Edwards, Spurgeon, Warfield, or Pink.  These are the words of God as breathed through the pen of the apostle Paul!  This verse states plainly what the Calvinist persistently tries to point out to their non-Reformed brethren: 

            1.  Who did God choose?  He chose us (i.e., all His sheep (cf John 6:37, John 10:14-16,25-29)

            2.  For what purpose did He choose us?  To be holy and blameless in His sight (this is accomplished by the imputation of the perfect holiness/righteousness of Christ) 

            3.  What have believers been predestined to?  Adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ.

            4.  What was God motivation?  Love. 

            5.  We were chosen in Christ and predestined to adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ according to what?  His pleasure and will (not because He saw that we would be wise enough, or smart enough, or virtuous enough, to choose Him first).

 

Here are a couple of verses I quote without any comments:

I Thessalonians 1:2-5   “We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, His choice of you; for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power ad in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.”

II Thessalonians 2:10-14 “And in very sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed that truth but have delighted in wickedness. But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, then brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”

 

Quotes Regarding Unconditional Election:



"A man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will and works, and depends, absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and works of Another - God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God." – Martin Luther

 

“Those who reject the doctrine of election are also doing away with humility, for it takes real humility to see that we could not even start to turn ourselves to God.” - John Calvin

Limited Atonement:  We use this term to describe primarily the intent and design of the atonement.  However, in discussing the intent and design of the atonement, the power (or lack thereof from a non-Reformed perspective) of the work of Christ on the cross is also brought to light.   Some, because of the misunderstanding and confusion inherent in the term “Limited Atonement” refer to this as “Definite” or “Particular” atonement.  I prefer to call it “Perfect” or “Actual” atonement.  Perfect in the sense that Christ perfectly accomplished all that He was sent to accomplish by His active and passive obedience.  The designs of God are altogether perfect, and if God had so designed to save men by Christ, then every single person whom Christ died (and lived) for must be saved.  I call it “actual” in the sense that Christ did not merely hypothetically save people at the cross, He really saved them!  He did not potentially save people at the cross, He actually saved them! Thus, limited atonement in essence teaches that God had a perfect plan to save a multitude of imperfect sinners whom He calls His sheep through the perfect life and redemptive work of His perfect Son, and that all those for whom God intended to save, and for whom the Son came, shall and must be saved.

            To summarize the views, in the non-Reformed view, the atonement was necessary to bring about salvation, but was not in and of itself sufficient to bring salvation.  It is contingent upon man to make up for what is lacking in God’s work.  The Calvinist maintains that the atonement was necessary to bring about salvation, and it was in and of itself sufficient to bring and secure salvation for all that it was intended for.  There is nothing lacking in the atonement.  Every person for whom Christ atoned will be saved. Jesus infallibly accomplished the salvation of all those whom He was sent save, which were only those who were given to Him by the Father.

Verses: 

Matt 1:21  “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins."

            -- In one verse we see both the office and mission of Jesus.  Then name “Jesus” means The Lord is salvation.  Thus, Jesus is called “Jesus” for a simple reason:  Salvation is of the Lord, and the Lord will save His people.  Is every single person who ever has or will live considered to be the people of God?  No.  When we compare this verse with other verses related to the redemptive work of Christ, this “people” is that group that is spoken of in John 6:37 that are said to be given to Jesus by the Father.  It is this group that is said to be “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.” (Eph 1:4), that is, those who were purchased for God with the blood of Christ from every tribe and tongue and people and nation (Rev 5:9).  It is those for whom He gave Himself to redeem from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds (Titus 2:14).  It is His “brethren,” i.e., the “children whom God has given [Him]” for whom He tasted death and brings to glory (Heb 2:9-13).  It is the elect, for whom Christ was not spared, but delivered up for every single one of them, and freely gives them all things (Rom 8:31-32).  It is the many for whom He gave His life a ransom (Matt 20:28).  It is the sheep for whom He laid down His life (John10:14).

John 6:37 “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

            -- Is it conceivable that Jesus would have died for those whom the Father had not given Him?   To suggest that is to suggest that the purpose of the Father and the purpose of the Son are two different things, and that in turn is to introduce conflict within the Godhead.  It would cause disunity among the Persons of the Trinity.  Jesus came to do all of the Fathers will, nothing more and nothing less (cf John 17:4), and the Holy Spirit came to perfectly apply the perfect of Christ to Christ’s sheep, and only to Christ’s sheep.  

John 10:14-15   “I am the good shepherd and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”

            --  Jesus states plainly that He lays down His life for a definite, particular, “limited” group—His sheep.  There are only two categories of persons:  sheep and goats.  Other terms used to denote these 2 categories in Scripture are elect and non-elect; the children of God and the children of the devil; believers and unbelievers.  No matter how one “slices” it, there can be only one conclusion drawn from the words of Jesus here:  He made an atonement for His sheep only.  Or, we could say He made an atonement only for the elect, the children of God, believers.  However you look at it though, it is simply impossible to maintain that Jesus atoned for every single person who ever has or ever will live, for not every single person who ever has or ever will live are considered God’s sheep, the children of God, or believers.  Jesus was sent to atone, to be the propitiation for, to redeem, reconcile, purchase, and save only those He was sent to accomplish those things for, nothing more, and nothing less, and every single one of those He did all of those things for will, not might, be saved, because, as Jesus said, “It is finished.”

            Now, who is it that Jesus is talking to in the context of the passage?  Verse 24 tells us, “The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  By the term “the Jews” I take that to mean most likely the Pharisees/Sadducees in particular.  Jesus goes on to tell them, “I told you, but you do not believe…”  Why is it that they did not believe?  Jesus tells them, “…you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.” (verse 26).  Here we have just simple cause and effect.  Those who were confronting Jesus here did not manifest the “effect” of believing, and the cause of why they did not manifest that effect is due to the cause of them not being one of Jesus’ sheep.  The converse of this is true as well though:  the effect of believing is due to the cause of being one of Christ’s sheep.  Belief is not the cause of the effect of being a sheep.  Rather, being a sheep produces the effect of belief.

            This highlights another significant point that is addressed in “Irresistible Grace,” namely, that belief, or saving faith, is always an effect.  In other words, it is something that is caused, or produced, by something.  That “something” is nothing less than the sovereign, effectual, regenerating grace of God.  The reason you believe, Bill, is not because of something good in you, but because of something good in God, and God has seen fit to be incredibly gracious toward you by bestowing upon you the gift of saving faith.  If we do not wish to acknowledge that God is the one responsible for 100% of our salvation, to include giving us saving faith, then I’m afraid we still have far too high an opinion about ourselves, and we are claiming for ourselves a part of the glory for our salvation.  I encourage you to seriously ponder that notion, Bill.  If we cannot assign every single portion of our salvation to grace of God, then grace is no longer grace, and the Gospel is no longer the Gospel.  Yes, to deny this concept is to in fact preach another gospel, plain and simple.

Acts 20:28  “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.”

            -- Notice, He purchased the church of God.  It is interesting to note that the Greek word for “church” means “the called out ones,” and not the “ones who cooperated with grace “ones.””  To be “called out” is a purely monergistic concept, not synergistic, for there is only one (mono) working power (ergos) that is doing the calling, and, it is these called out ones that have been (not might be) purchased.  I once heard someone ask in relation to this:  “Did Jesus get what He paid for?”  Only from a Reformed perspective He did.  In a non-Reformed concept of the atonement, you have Jesus buying the slaves out of the marketplace (even those presumably already in Hell), but then the slaves are still not His.  

This calls attention to the consistency we have seen with the other points.  From the sinful mass of humanity God has chosen to save an innumerable amount of people.  The Father has given this people to Christ.  Christ atones for this people’s sins.  God calls these people out of darkness into His marvelous light.  All of God, all of Christ, all of the Spirit, all of grace…a perfect life and sacrifice that accomplishes all that it was designed to accomplish (Jesus did not come to merely “help” sinners get saved, but to actually save them, and that is precisely what He did (without our help).  The non-Reformed view simply cannot say this, because its view of the work of Christ is far too anemic (and, in essence, Jesus did not accomplish anything…it was all “hypothetical”).  Actually, it cannot even be described as anemic, because that still assigns some power to the cross, albeit a very weak power.  Anemic, then, is far too grandiose a term to use to describe the non-Reformed view of the work of Christ on the cross.  A better term would be impotent. 

Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”

            -- Again we see the particularity of the atonement.  Who did Jesus give Himself up for?  The church, i.e., all of the called out ones who ever have and ever will live.

               Many more text to look at, as well as examining such words as propitiation, expiation, redemption, reconciliation, etc.  I know of people who became Calvinists just by examining those words and what they mean, especially the word propitiation.  As a matter of fact, I became a Calvinist based upon this point.  When I realized that Jesus really did make an actual propitiation whereby He, once and for, appeased the wrath of God on behalf of His people, and that Jesus really did expiate our sins, and redeemed us, and reconciled us, and made an actual, not a potential atonement, I became a Calvinist.  It was at that point that I realized that Jesus really does save.  Here is how I speak about this in my article Why I’m a Calvinist (www.geocities.com/johnandursula/whycalvinist):

 

“The clincher came after I had listened to a lesson taught by Dr. R.C. Sproul in a teaching series I had purchased some months earlier called The Cross of Christ…I thought that the lesson would be about Eternal Security, which I was not interested in hearing about, because by that time I had even rejected the teaching of Eternal Security (guess you could say that I was now a consistent Arminian)…What I soon discovered was that the lesson wasn’t about the doctrine of Eternal Security (necessarily that is), but about the most controversial point in Calvinism, Limited Atonement… Dr. Sproul began to talk about a Savior who doesn’t just try to save, but One who actually does save.  He spoke of how people were actually, not potentially, saved at the cross.  He spoke of how neither the Architect of the plan of salvation nor the Savior experience frustration to their holy, omnipotent will.  He spoke of the fact that if this doctrine were not true, then Christ could have theoretically suffered on the cross, and no one might have been saved. Think of it!  The non-Reformed view teaches that Christ’s atonement only saves if people accept it.  Well, what if no one would have ever accepted it?  Christ, according to that view, could have died in vain if no one ever accepted Him.  Dear reader, is not that one fact alone enough to cause you to stop and think for a moment?  Is it conceivable that Christ’s precious Blood could have been spilt in vain?  God forbid! 

Sproul then spoke of how every single person for whom Christ died would be saved, because Christ never fails to do that which He came to do, i.e., save.  In a word, he spoke of the cross as having real power!  He spoke of a powerful God versus an impotent God who sits up in Heaven and crosses His fingers hoping that someone would “accept” His offer.  I remember after that lesson, I got up from my couch, turned off the VCR, and said, “Oh my God, I’m a Calvinist!”   It was as if I had heard the Good News all over again, only this time it was really good news, because I heard about a God and Christ who truly is Almighty over all!  It was then that I surrendered to that dreaded, monstrous doctrine I had been warned about:  Calvinism. The answer to the question Steve [a Calvinist who shared the Reformed perspective with me, and to whom I was quite hostile in the process! J] posed to me, which Jesus continues to ask [“Who do you say that I am?”], was answered.  Above all else, Jesus is the sovereign, omnipotent Savior of the world who always accomplishes His perfect, holy will.  He is a perfect Savior who perfectly accomplished the redemption He was sent to accomplish.

               As my testimony alludes to, it was coming to an understanding of precisely what Jesus accomplished and finished (if anything) that caused me to see the truth of the Reformed view.  It’s those words, Bill, that are just packed with meaning (i.e., propitiation, etc.).  If Jesus really did do all of the things conveyed in those words, the there are only 2 options that we have:  universalism, or Calvinism.  Any other position is simply impossible, unless, of course, we make all of those things purely hypothetical, in which case we completely rob the cross of all of its power, preeminence, and purpose.  I simply do not have time for a theology that essentially makes God into a doting grandfather figure, who tries and tries and tries, but can never get anything accomplished because of the “sovereign” and “omnipotent” and “free” and fickle will of man.  I simply cannot accept a notion of the work of Christ that has Him going through all the trouble of taking upon Himself human flesh, perfectly obeying the Law at all points, then flogged, crucified, risen, and ascended, just so that there might be a chance, not a guarantee, and people would be saved.  And here is another point of irony…people often view the Reformed perspective as being “limited,” when it is the Reformed view alone that teaches that the omnipotence of the cross, whereby Christ infallibly secured and guaranteed the salvation of an innumerable host of people.  How many people did the work of Christ on the cross secure and guarantee salvation for?  1 million?  No. 100,000? No 10,000? 1,000?  No.  100?  10?  Uh, no.  1?  Nope.  0?  Correct!  Zero!  The big goose egg, zilch, nada, nothing, not one single individual, that’s how many.         

 

               Jesus was sent into the world by the Father to save the people that the Father had given him. I maintain what the Bible clearly teaches: Jesus perfectly succeeded in His task. 

 

Quotes:

“Limited” sounds very narrow as compared to “Unlimited.” It leads to misconception and meaningless controversy. We must insist that all Christians believe in Limited Atonement. The fact there is a hell proves that statement. Everyone believes that the ultimate benefits of the atonement are limited to those who believe in Christ. The real question is NOT “Is the atonement limited,” but rather, “WHO does the limiting, God or man?” Does God’s sovereign grace and purpose dictate the ultimate success or failure of the redemptive work of Christ or does the “sovereign” and fickle will of man decide whether God’s intentions and purposes will be realized?” - John G. Reisinger

 

The following is from Dr. John Owen, Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and Vice Chancellor of Oxford University:

 

“For Whom Did Christ Die?

The Father Imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for either:

1. All the sins of all men.

2. All the sins of some men, or

3. Some of the sins of all men

In which case it may be said:

a.  That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so none are saved.

b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.

c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?

You answer, because of unbelief.  I ask is this unbelief a sin, or is it not?  If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not.  If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died?  If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!”
Scotish Presbyterian Pastor Colin Maxwell:

 

“The classic non-Calvinist [argues for] the unlimited nature of the atonement i.e., that Christ died for elect and reprobate alike without any distinction. This means that Christ purposed to save those who would finally reject Him, actually took their sins on His own body to the tree, paid the price in full of their redemption, satisfied the divine anger and justice, presumably rose again for their justification - although they were never justified - and sees His sovereign purposes frustrated because their sin out-bounds His grace. In all this…the Saviour is still meant to see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. I think not.”  (http://www.geocities.com/cfpchurch/anticalvinistsites.html)

 “The statement that Christ’s death is sufficient for all and efficient for only those who believe is also held by Calvinists. Calvin himself was quite happy to quote and endorse it (Comments on 1 John 2:2) To clear up any misunderstanding on this, we need to say that Christ’s blood has infinite value (He would not have suffered one ounce more had, say, Judas been among the elect) We just go along with the Scripture view that whatever works out in the end has been ordained by God who “works all things after the counsel of His will” (Ephesians 1:11) and since only the elect will believe…then this was the purpose of God even when Christ died upon the Cross. This puts God back on His throne where He belongs and saves us the embarrassment of believing in a frustrated God playing second fiddle in His own Universe.”  

19th Century Baptist Preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

“If it was Christ’s intention to save all men, how deplorably has he been disappointed, for we have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth with fore and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory of universal redemption, were bought with His blood.”  

“He has punished Christ, why should He punish twice for one offence? Christ has died for all His people’s sins, and if thou art in the covenant, thou art one of Christ’s people. Damned thou canst not be. Suffer for thy sins thou canst not. Until God can be unjust, and demand two payments for one debt, He cannot destroy the soul for whom Jesus died.”  

Charles Finney, an Arminian theologian:

“I cannot believe in the vicarious atonement (i.e. that the death of Christ actually purchased anyone’s redemption) for if I did I would either have to become a universalist (someone who believes all humanity will be saved) or a Calvinist (believing that certain people will be saved).” His logic was very sound at this point. http://wla.advancedministry.com/index.cfm?i=1041&mid=12&id=1173

 

Unknown Author:

“The issue in the doctrine of limited atonement is:  Who did Christ actually redeem, anyway?”   

 

Irresistible Grace (Effectual Grace/Calling):  By these words we mean that the gospel extends a call to repent to everyone who hears its message (Acts 17:30).  It promises salvation to all who repent and believe (Rom 10:9).  Yet, because men are dead in trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1), men do not respond to the gospel call.  Men, of themselves, are both unwilling and unable savingly to respond to the gospel call (1 Cor 2:14).  No amount of external pleading, bargaining, threatening, or promising can cause blind, dead, deaf, rebellious sinners to bow the knee to Christ. Such an act is totally contrary to man’s nature, which is radically corrupted by sin (Rom 3:10-18; John 6:37). There is, for the elect, an inward call by the Holy Spirit attached to the outward call of the gospel (Rom 8:28-34; Acts 13:48).  This is sometimes called regeneration, being “born again or from above, a new creation, etc. (John 1:12-13, 3:3; 2 Cor 5:17), For the purpose of our acrostic it is called “irresistible grace.” The gift of faith, sovereignly given by God’s Holy Spirit, cannot be resisted by the elect

Verses:  

Isaiah 42:7 “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.”

            -- “To open blind eyes…” – Can a blind man “synergistically” work to have his sight restored?  No.  The eyes must be “monergistically” acted upon by a physician capable of providing sight to the blind person.  Just as  the physically blind person is absolutely passive in the event of being made to see, so too the spiritually dead person is absolutely passive in the event of being made to see…it is only those that have been born again that can “see” the kingdom of God (John 3:3). 

            “To bring out prisoners from prison…” – How is one that is incapacitated for some reason brought out “synergistically” anywhere?  If a fireman rescues a person from a burning building who has been knocked unconscious due to smoke inhalation, the fireman must carry the person to safety.  In this passage, it is a prisoner that must be set free.  A prisoner cannot come out from prison, for a very simple reason:  they are in chains and/or behind bars.  In order to bring a prisoner out of prison, the guards of the prison must open the cell door, take hold of the prison, and loosen and remove the chains in order to bring him out of the prison. The prisoner is completely passive—he is being acted upon by one who has absolute power over him, and by the only one who can free him from his chains.  No amount of “free will” will ever set the prisoner free—he must be set free.  This is precisely the state of affairs spiritually. We are prisoners in sin, shackled and bound hand and foot, and placed in a room that has no escape.  As a matter of fact, this passage describes the fact that we are sitting in darkness.  I don’t know if you have ever been in a room that is pitch black; if you have, then you know that in a room like that, you are as good as blind.  You can’t see anything.  Thus, not only is there no escape for us due to being in this prison, but we are in darkness, which means we cannot even see. Here we are, in this desperate condition, and the real kicker is, we do not even want to escape!  We actually desire to be in this prison, thus, no amount of “free will” will ever set us free, because 1.  No amount of “willing” can free a prisoner., 2.  We aren’t even willing.  We must be brought out of the prison, and this is precisely what God’s grace, based upon the perfect works and atonement of Christ, does.    

Ezekiel 36:25  “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

            -- Where is “synergy” here?  When a patient has a heart transplant, does the patient “cooperate” with the doctor?  We can no more perform open heart surgery on ourselves than we can give ourselves a new “spiritual” heart.  This is the work of God and His grace alone.  Also, please note, there are only 2 “kinds” of heart:  a heart of flesh, and a heart of stone.  The heart of stone is what we all have prior to regeneration.  The heart of stone does not desire, nor can it produce within itself, a desire to come to Christ (John 6:37).  One must first have the stony heart removed, and replaced with a heart of flesh before he will ever come to Christ.  He must first be born of the Spirit in order to exercise those things directly related to the Spirit:  repentance and saving faith (which things are themselves gifts given to us by God).  Apart from the Lord taking out our heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh and putting a new spirit within us, we will never come to Christ.  This is wholly the work of God and His grace. Salvation is all of the Lord and all of grace. 

John 8:42-47 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have no even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand what I am saying?  It is because you cannot hear My word.  You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.  But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which one of you convicts Me of sin?  If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears the words of God for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

            -- Two groups of people:  the children of the devil, and the children of God.  Each group “hears” the things of their father.  Jesus here tells us plainly that the reason why those He was addressing did not believe Him was because:  1.  They were not of God.  2.  They were of their father the devil.  And please note, it is not merely that they did not listen and believe, it is “because [they] cannot hear” the Word of Christ.  All of the “synergy” in the world is utterly useless here, because from their (our) side of the “synergistic” equation, they have no power to perform the task in question, and therefore cannot, i.e., they are unable to come to Christ.  Here is a further breakdown of the passage:

            “If God were your Father, you would love Me” – At issue is love for Christ.  Why don’t those whom Christ is addressing love Him?  Answer:  if God were their Father, they would.  If that is true, how is it that I can get God to be my Father?  Well, the answer is that we must go through the Mediator, Jesus Christ, for, as Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one can come to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6).  So, if the only way to love Jesus is by having God as our Father, and the only way to the Father is through Jesus, then we have quite a problem, don’t we?  This verse clearly demonstrates then that salvation is dependent upon something outside of man, namely, the sovereign grace of God.  The only way a person can have God as his Father is if God Himself chooses to be that person’s Father, and then sovereignly makes that individual one of His children.  This is precisely what the New Testament repeatedly teaches (John 6:37; Acts 13:48; Rom 8:28-34; Rom 9; Rom 11:5-6; Eph 1:3-11; 2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 1:9, etc., etc., etc…).

“Why do you not understand what I am saying?  It is because you cannot hear My

word.”  Jesus asks the question to which He provides the answer.  The reason they don’t

understand is because they can’t hear (hearing and understanding here being metaphors for assenting to the truth of the Gospel and trusting in Christ). Once again we see the truth of the total inability of man to incline himself to the spiritual good, and once again we see the incredible power of sin.  Here was the God-Man standing before them; they clearly knew that He was indeed the Messiah, yet, they continued to reject, and would eventually murder, Christ.  The words of Jonathan Edwards come to my mind, when he said (to paraphrase), “we would kill God if we could get our hands on Him.”  That is the only thing our will “freely” wants to do.  By the way, with the will in mind, how can one maintain that they have a “free will” in the sense you wish to maintain, if that will has an absolute restriction placed on it, i.e., if one cannot hear the Word of Christ, then obviously their free will is not free in the most important thing that it really needs to be free for (coming to Christ).  They will not “will” to come to Christ, because their “will” cannot “will” to do so.  This does not describe a will that is free, Bill, but one that is in bondage.  Hence the words of Christ, “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36).  I could continue with the rest of the passage, but it is basically saying the same thing.  Yes, we must “will,” but at issue is how we, who do not and cannot will to come to Christ, are made willing.  The answer is that Christ set us free, and gives us new desires, and we then act on those desires.  Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.

Luke 24:45 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

            -- If their minds had to be opened to understand the Scriptures, then that means that they obviously were closed prior to that point.  Where is “synergy” here?  If ones mind has to be opened before they can understand, then synergy is simply not an option.  If you open something, the thing you are opening does not “cooperate” or work with you.  For synergism to be true, this verse would have to read, “Then He worked with them and helped them to understand as they yielded to His help.”  The Scripture never talks this away about unregenerate sinners. 

Acts 2:39 (NKJV) “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”  Salvation is always dependent upon the Lord, and the Lord is always the determinative cause of the whole of our salvation.  Salvation begins with election (“as many as the Lord will call…”), is perfectly accomplished by Christ redemptive work (both His active and passive obedience), and is applied to us by the Spirit (“as many as the Lord our God will call…) The calling spoken of is not the general/outward call of the Gospel that goes to every creature, but the inward call of regeneration that is given only to the “as many as’s…”, i.e., God’s elect.

Acts 18:27 “And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace:”

            --  How does saving faith come about?  This verse answers the question:  through grace.  It is not that grace helps us to get so far, and then it is up to us to make good on the grace (i.e., synergism).  Rather, it is that the very act of belief occurs only through grace.  Paul echoes this thought in 1 Cor 1:30, “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.”  Prior to this, Paul has told us that it is God who has made the sovereign choice of some and not others, and all of this is so that “no flesh should glory in His presence.”  If free will theology is true, then all those who make the right “choice” have room for boasting, for they made the right choice while still in their flesh (i.e., their old nature).  Once again we see a critical difference between Reformed and non-Reformed thought:  The Reformed ascribes every ounce of glory in salvation to the grace and power of God alone. The non-Reformed, though they may say they do the same, in actuality do not because they leave the most fundamental point (coming to Christ) to their own power.

Quotes:

Augustine:  “For so much is the will of the saints inflamed by the Holy Spirit, that they are able, because they are willing; and willing, because God worketh in them so to will.” –

John Calvin:

“Conversion of the will is the effect of Divine grace inwardly bestowed.”

“Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.”

“A man is not saved against his will, but he is made willing by the operation of the Holy Ghost. A mighty grace which he does not wish to resist enters into the man, disarms him, makes a new creature of him, and he is saved.”

 

A.W. Pink:

“It is not a question of the sinners willingness or unwillingness, for by nature all are unwilling.  Willingness to come to Christ is the finished product of Divine power operating in the human heart and will in overcoming man’s inherent and chronic enmity.”

 

Dr. James White:

“Divine birth can have only one origin:  God.” 

Perseverance of the Saints (Preservation of the Saints):  Those who are regenerated and justified must, and will, persevere in the faith, being preserved by the power of God.  Salvation is all of grace from start to finish.  Jesus is both the author, and the finisher of our faith.

Verses: 

2 Timothy 2:19 “Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, “The Lord knows those who are His…”

            --  The foundation of our salvation is not our fickle and weak “freewill,” rather, it is the Lord God Almighty Himself.  The Lord has staked out His very reputation on the fact that those He saves are eternally saved and secure in Him, as we will see in the passages that relate to the New Covenant (Jer 31:31-34; Ezek 36:26-28).  And notice, the seal is “The Lord knows those who are His.”  This ties once again into election.  Who are those that are His?  Jesus tells us:  “All that the Father gives Me…” (John 6:37).  They are His “brethren,” the “children whom God has given [Him]” (Heb 2:13, 17).  It is His church which He purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28), and the elect, who will be gathered from one end of heaven to the other (Matt 24:31).  It is the sheep that Jesus speaks of John 10, to whom Jesus gives eternal life, and they shall never perish.  It is those who are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world who have been predestined to the adoption as sons by Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of His will, and have been sealed in the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.  Thus, to understand any part of salvation, especially perseverance, we must have an understanding of the eternal plan of God, for perseverance is rooted in election, accomplished at the cross of Christ, and applied by the Holy Spirit.  

John 10:14-30  “14 I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.  15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.  16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.  17 "Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.  18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father."  19 Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. 20 And many of them said, "He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?" 21 Others said, "These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" 22 The Shepherd Knows His Sheep Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch. 24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, "How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly." 25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me.  26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.   27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.  29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand.  30 I and My Father are one." In this passage, Jesus, referring to His sheep, says:

1) He knows them, and they know Him (v. 14). 

2) He lays down His life for them (v. 15). 

3) The reason those He was addressing did not believe is because they were not His sheep (v.26). 

4)  His sheep hear His voice and follow Him (v.27). 

5) He gives them eternal life, and they shall never perish (v. 28).

 

How many of His sheep does Jesus give eternal life?  All.  Is there ever a time when any of His sheep shall perish?  No.  Jesus then tells us why this is so in verse 29, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all…” The sheep (not the goats) have been given to Jesus by the Father, and their salvation is an absolute certainty because it is God who initiates, accomplishes, applies, and preserves it. In John 6:37 Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to Me…”  The “all” spoken of here are the sheep spoken of in John Chapter 10.  Every single person that the Father gives to Jesus will, not might, come to Him, and those who come to Him will, not might, be raised up the last day, and it is the giving of the Father that precedes the coming (i.e., saving belief) of the sinner. 

 

Jesus then says in verse 29 that the will of the Father is, “that of all He has given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up the last day.”  How many of His sheep does Jesus lose?  None.  Can God fail to bring about what He has purposed or planned from all eternity?  God forbid!  God is greater than all (yes, even man’s fickle and feeble free will).  Jesus’ words demonstrate that far from being a cooperative venture whereby God helps us, in essence, to save ourselves, salvation is the sovereign work of a sovereign God from start to finish. All those who have been chosen in Christ from all eternity (i.e., all that the Father has given to Jesus) will, not might be saved. 

 

Rom 8:28-30 “28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” The Apostle Paul speaks powerfully to these themes in Romans 8:28-30, which, as noted earlier, has been referred to by many commentators as the golden chain of salvation--a chain that cannot be broken because it was created and is maintained by a sovereign God. Paul says that those called according to God’s purpose are those whom God foreknew and predestined.  Who are those He foreknew and predestined?  It is the sheep that were given to Christ by the Father “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:3).  It is these that He calls, and this calling is effectual; it never fails to bring about God’s desired effect, as Paul says, “whom He called, He also justified.” Paul then tells us that all those that God justifies, He glorifies.  Paul says in Rom 8:31-33, “If God be for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”  The “us” and the “all” that Paul is referring to is those whom Paul has been talking to and about, the elect, as Paul’s states clearly in verse 33, “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect?  It is God who justifies.”  Justification is linked directly to Christ’s work of atonement, and Christ’s work of atonement is linked particularly to the elect, Christ’s sheep.  As Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd, and I know My sheep, and am known by My own…and I lay down My life for the sheep…”  It is by Christ’s atoning grace that He purchases His sheep, and procures all things related to their salvation.  He has set His love on His sheep from and for all eternity. 

 

            With that concept in mind, I noted earlier that the Lord has staked out His very reputation on the fact that those He saves are eternally saved and secure in Him, as can be seen in the New Covenant.  In Jeremiah 31:31-34, the Lord says:

 

"Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah -- not according to the covenant that I mmade with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."  (emphasis mine)

 

While Israel prostituted herself and broke the stipulations of the covenant of her marriage with Yahweh, God nevertheless remained faithful to Israel.  Israel broke the Mosaic Covenant, and demonstrated to the entire world that there is none righteous, no not one.  Their law-breaking and inability to keep even the smallest portion, or simplest term of the covenant, was a demonstration to all of humanity that we are all law-breakers, hopelessly condemned by the law, and as such we are in desperate need of a Savior (see Gal 3:22-24.  God then unveils a part of His redemptive plan that was conceived from all eternity, and reveals it to an Old Testament prophet named Jeremiah, and reveals what would next ensue in redemptive history.   Where we continually fail to meet the terms and conditions of the covenant, God Himself would fulfill the covenant, and He Himself would actually work in His people in such a way as they would forever be called His people.  This all pure monergism.    

 

The prophet Ezekiel speaks of this New Covenant in similar terms:

 

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”  (Ezek 36:26-28). 

 

Notice in both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the active agent in this process is God.  God will put His law in their minds.  God will write it on their hearts.  God will be their God, and they shall be His people. God will give the person a new heart.  God will remove the stony heart.  God will put a new spirit within the person.  God will put His Spirit within the person.  God will cause the person to walk in His statutes!  Commenting on this passage, the great Baptist preacher from the 19th century, C.H. Spurgeon wrote”

 

“You see, it is all “I will,” and “I will give,” and “I will take away.” This is the royal style of the King of kings, who is able to accomplish all His will. No word of His shall ever fall to the ground. The Lord knows right well that you cannot change your own heart and cannot cleanse your own nature, but He also knows that He can do both. He can cause the Ethiopian to change his skin and the leopard his spots. Hear this and be astonished: He can create you a second time; He can cause you to be born again. This is a miracle of grace, but the Holy Ghost will perform it.” (Charles Haddon Spurgeon, All of Grace : An earnest word with those who are seeking salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. Published in electronic form in 1996 by Christian Classics Foundation. Whitaker House: Springdale PA, p. 30).

 

One more thought here: there is not one mention of human of “free will!”  Not one!  God, not man, is that sole efficient cause and agent of salvation.  The myth of “free will” as it is commonly understood is essentially demolished here by God.  Synergism is once again shown to be what it truly is:  pure humanism (and, in the final analysis, atheism).

 

But how is this New Covenant put into effect?  Jesus tells us:

 

“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you.  For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matt 26:26-29). 

 

Notice, it is Jesus’ sacrifice that would put this new covenant into effect.  This means that everything related to that covenant is by the Blood of Jesus.  God has determined to do things in the New Covenant, and the means by which He determined to bring do those things was by the blood atonement of Christ. Thus, God will put His law in their minds, by the cross of Christ.  God will write it on their hearts, by the cross of Christ.  God will be their God, and they shall be His people, by the cross of Christ. God will give the person a new heart, by the cross of Christ.  God will remove the stony heart, by the cross of Christ.  God will put a new spirit within the person, by the cross of Christ.  God will put His Spirit within the person, by the cross of Christ.  God will cause the person to walk in His statutes, by the cross of Christ!  This means that every jot and tittle of our salvation was wrought for us by Christ alone on the cross.  Our salvation is wholly owing to the eternal decree of God and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  The very faith that we possess, and the very ability we have to turn from our wretched way to God, i.e., repentance, are themselves therefore something that Christ secured for us on the cross, and bestows upon us as an absolutely free gift. 

In short, those who have been chosen by God from all eternity, and for whom Christ died, and for whom the Spirit regenerated, are saved and will endure to the end. Salvation is of the Lord from start to finish.  What Christ begins, He always succeeds in finishing.  Many profess to be Christians, but only those who are truly born again (i.e., the sheep) will endure to the end.  Those who fall away only display the fact that they were never Christ’s sheep.  Salvation is rendered certain by God’s sovereign will: All God has determined to save will be saved (John 6:37-40), and God’s sovereign power: He raises His people from spiritual deadness to spiritual life (Eph 2:1-9), and He preserves His people by His sovereign power (Rom 8:28-39); to Him alone be all of the glory.  We were not able to initiate salvation or saving faith (Christ is the author of our faith), and the only reason we persevere to the end is because Christ is the finisher of our faith.  Salvation is all of grace from start to finish. 

 

Not only have I now quoted an abundance of texts to support the position, but, you never did respond to many of the Scriptural citations that I provided in my first e-mail, nor did you interact with the larger argument found in the article that you read that precipitated your first e-mail.

…First, I take this mean that you do not agree with what I have written concerning God’s sovereignty, etc. (That’s okay, I just want to make sure that I am following you here).  If you do disagree, then I would respectfully ask that you point out some specifics about what you disagree with, and provide a biblical response (instead of a purely philosophical one) that: 

a.  Establishes and proves your understanding of the nature of God and the nature man (i.e., his “freewill”),

 

My Biblical response: “Man was created in the image of God.”   

Unlike the traducian theory, I believe in the special creation of every human being so that even an unborn baby can be filled with the Holy Ghost. Children are the Kingdom of God.  God is the Father of all spirits. The Father of your spirit was God not Adam. You may claim linear decent from Adam’s DNA, but your spirit was created by God.  You were created in the image of God, not totally depraved. 

 

                        -- First, your response does not do what I asked, namely, establish your understanding of the nature of God and the nature of man’s “freewill.”  To say that man is created in the image of God is great.  But, what does that mean in terms of his “freewill” as well as God’s attributes (such as omniscience, for example), and how does one account for the massive of volume of texts that speak of how the fall of Adam of Eve has radically impacted that image?  For example, what we read about human nature after the fall is that we are “dead in our trespasses and sin.” As a result, there is none righteous, no not one, there is none that does good, no not one, there is none that seeks God, no not one.  But, if I am following your logic here, if we are created in the image of God, then that means we have the inherent ability to do good, to be righteous, to seek God, to not be dead in our trespasses and sin, to not be slaves of sin, to not possess a nature that is deceitful above things and desperately wicked.  What we find in Scripture is the exact opposite, as I have already stated.  Yes, we are created in the image of God, but that image has become marred (not obliterated, as some in their haste to overthrow Calvinism wrongly and unfairly say). 

 

            Second, the view you are describing is the view of creationism (as opposed to traducianism and preexistence).  I know I probably do not need to mention this to you, but, since you brought this up, I’m sure you realize that the view you hold to is the same view held by Calvin and others.  Here is a blurb from an article on anthropology drawn from http://www.leaderu.com/isot/anthropology/lecture2.html that may be of interest:

 

Creationism. Each soul is created by a special act of God (at conception or birth).

Arguments for:

 

1. Creationism reserves greater honor for God (humans are not viewed as ‘co-creators’).

2. Christ did not inherit a sin nature (therefore the immaterial must be created separately for each person).

3. Traducianism might make procreation seem unholy. (So to preserve the Protestant view of the sanctity of sex in marriage, we favor the Creationist view).

4. This was the dominant view of the Eastern church, Jerome, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and most Calvinists including Berkhof.

BERKHOF ARGUES FOR CREATIONISM

Note:  Louis Berkhof was a Reformed theologian who lived in early to mid 1900’s.  His “Systematic Theology” is still the standard for many seminarians (especially in the Reformed camp).

Arguments in favor of Creationism. The following are the more important considerations in favor of this theory.


(1) It is more consistent with the prevailing representations of Scripture than Traducianism. The original account of creation points to a marked distinction between the creation of the body and that of the soul. The one is taken from the earth, while the other comes directly from God. This distinction is kept up throughout the Bible, where body and soul are not only represented as different substances, but also as having different origins, Eccl. 12:7; Isa. 42:5; Zech. 12:1; Heb. 12:9. Cf. Num. 16:22. Of the passage in Hebrews even Delitzsch, though a Traducianist, says, “There can hardly be a more classical proof text for creationism.”


(2) It is clearly far more consistent with the nature of the human soul than Traducianism. The immaterial and spiritual, and therefore indivisible nature of the soul of man, generally admitted by all Christians, is clearly recognized by Creationism. The traducian theory on the other hand, posits a derivation of essence, which, as is generally admitted, necessarily implies separation or division of essence.


(3) It avoids the pitfalls of Traducianism in Christology and does greater justice to the Scriptural representation of the person of Christ. He was very man, possessing a true human nature, a real body and a rational soul, was born of woman, was made in all points like as we are—and yet, without sin. He did not, like all other men, share in the guilt and pollution of Adam’s transgression. This was possible, because he did not share the same numerical essence which sinned in Adam.  L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, p. 199.

Thus, your appeal, Bill, to this as an argument against the Calvinistic view on the nature of man is a non sequitur. Ironically, it could even be that you might actually find something stated here that might be of use to you as you interact with others to prove the creationist theory. 

 

As for the image of God, again, Reformed theology certainly teaches that man is created in the image of God.  As a matter of fact, Louis Berkhof notes in his Systematic Theology that the “Reformed churches, following in the footsteps of Calvin, have a far more comprehensive conception of the image of God than either the Lutherans or the Roman Catholics.”  (p. 206).  Berkhof describes the views held by church leaders in the first few centuries of church history, and demonstrates that while there were distinctions and differences among them on various aspects, there was an essential agreement that the image of God “consisted primarily in man’s rational and moral characteristics, and in his capacity for holiness.”  (p. 202).  Included on the list of those who held this view are Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Augustine, and John of Damascus.  Please note, both Latin and Greek fathers are on the list.  The individual who dissented from this view was the man (a Westerner no less) whom you seem to be staking an awful lot of clout on:  Pelagius.  He held that the image consisted merely in that man was endowed with reason and freewill and as such was able to choose and do good.  I can accept what Pelagius said in terms of man being endowed with reason and free will, however, I would add that our reason has been darkened, and our will is enslaved to sin.  We still choose what we choose freely, however, the only thing we can freely choose is that which is opposed to the ultimate spiritual good.  We cannot, as Pelagius maintained, and which Scripture repeatedly denies, choose the ultimate spiritual good.     

 

Here is a quote that Calvin makes that both affirms this image, and kind of makes one wonder how Calvin could ever be likened to a Gnostic:

 

“Man is both the image of God and our flesh. Wherefore, if we would not violate the image of God, we must hold the person of man sacred—if we would not divest ourselves of humanity we must cherish our own flesh. The practical inference to be drawn from the redemption and gift of Christ will be elsewhere considered. The Lord has been pleased to direct our attention to these two natural considerations as inducements to watch over our neighbour’s preservation—viz. to revere the divine image impressed upon him, and embrace our own flesh.” (Volume 2. Chapter 8: Exposition of the Moral Law).  Here is a link that has what Calvin taught concerning this, and his refutation of, among other things, Manichaeism.  http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/m.sion/cvin1-13.htm

 

Third, as for the power of free will and the image of God, here is a direct quote from the Eastern Orthodox Church:  “The Orthodox Church believes that the corruption of the God-like image of man was not complete, that man’s will became blurred, but did not disappear. Man’s desire for salvation implies that man feels his inner emptiness and turns to God for forgiveness and redemption.”  http://paul.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7063.asp.  The statement here is in direct contradiction of the testimony of Scripture.  Whereas they say that the corruption of the God-like image of man was not complete, Scripture maintains otherwise, as I pointed out in the many texts I quoted earlier (and there are many, many more that can be ushered in to demonstrate the point).  

 

I would also add that in order for man to turn to God, he must first be turned to God.  And, instead of his will being “blurred,” (where is that found in the Bible?), the Bible describes man’s will (or, metaphorically, his vision) as blind. This is always the problem with synergistic theologies; they still have man alive in his trespasses and sin, where the Bible says he is dead.  They still have man hearing, while the Bible’s picture is that he is deaf.  They give man a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone, and eyes that are still providing vision (albeit blurred), while the Biblical picture is that he is blind.  In synergistic theologies, man is the determinative cause of everything, to include salvation, and as such it is man, and not God, who is ultimately glorified, and in essence deified. 

 

b. Deals with the texts that might contradict your understanding (note, in dealing

with those texts, you must provide an accurate exegesis of those texts, i.e., one that is both faithful to what the passage teaches in context, and obviously does not contradict other passages).

 

Could you name a few?

            I quoted quite a few in my article, such as John 6, which you never responded to.  I’ve also quoted passages above.  But, since this is the point in the response where you asked, I will provide more texts.  I will comment on many, and others I will just let stand:

 

 

God’s Sovereignty

 

Westminster Confession of Faith on this point in 5:1, “God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.” Before providing the texts, let me say that if you disagree with that statement, your disagreement is not with Calvinism, but with any form of monotheism.  In other words, to disagree with that statement would, for all intents and purposes, make you an Atheist.  Here are a few texts: 

 

Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  (Compare also Psalm 104, where we find the first use of “Praise the Lord” in the psalm is in response to God’s Providence). 

 

            -- This may seem elementary, but I think it is important to understand that without God’s sovereignty, there never would have been a creation.  He was (and is) sovereign over every detail of His creation, and creation is something that only a sovereign God can do. 

 

When we read through the creation account, we see how God created each sphere of creation precisely the way He wanted to, and endowed each sphere with the attributes that He determined they would have.  A.W.  Pink states, “He (God) might create or not create according to His own good pleasure.”  Pink goes on to make two other points concerning the creation account and God’s sovereignty that I think are well worth remembering:  “Learn this basic truth, that the Creator is absolute Sovereign, executing His own will, performing His own pleasure, and considering nothing but His own glory…The Lord hath made all things for Himself (Prov 16:4)”  Pink also states, “If then we see the sovereignty of God displayed throughout all creation why should it be a strange thing if we behold it operating in the midst of the human family?  Why should it be thought strange if to one God is pleased to give five talents and to another only one?  Why should it be thought strange if one is born with a robust constitution and another of the same parents is frail and sickly?  Why should it be thought strange that…some be born idiots and others with high intellectual endowments; some born lethargic and others full of energy…Why should it be thought strange that some are qualified by nature to lead and rule, and others only fitted to follow and serve?  Heredity and environment cannot account for all these variations and inequalities.  No; it is God who maketh one to differ from another.”

 

What this demonstrates is that the doctrine of Divine Providence/Sovereignty flows from the fact that God is Creator.  He created the heavens and the earth.  He created diversity among persons.  He is in control of all aspects of creation, and over all aspects within His creation.

 

Genesis 15:2 “And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?”

 

            -- God is in control over the ability of persons to bear children. Simply put, God is the one who determines who will and will not go childless, and He determines when a woman will become pregnant (regardless even if the woman is taking some form of birth control!  Many women have complained how they still got pregnant after having been on the pill), and He determines how many children a person will in fact have.  As one who holds to the creationist theory, all of this is just common sense, is it not?

 

Genesis 20:6  “And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.”

 

            -- God has the power to keep people from sinning.  God here, as the omnipotent Creator and sovereign of the universe, is in control even of the decisions and actions of men.  This directly contradicts every man-centered theology that teaches that God does not move the “will” of man wherever He so desires.  God directs the will of men wherever He sees fit to accomplish His own ends.  The Scriptural support for that is absolutely massive—just read any prophetic statement in Scripture.

 

Exodus 4:21 “And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.”

 

            -- Many people when confronted with the hardening of Pharaohs heart, in order to absolve God, will say that Pharaoh essentially hardened his own heart (which is essentially what you end up doing a bit later).  While that is true in one sense, it still does not adequately deal with the passages that expressly state that God Himself hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  The Scripture is manifestly clear though that God hardened Pharaohs heart, and He did so to accomplish His own purposes. No amount of side-stepping can change the fact.

 

Now, we must address how it is that God hardened Pharaohs heart.  Some believe that God’s hardening of Pharaoh is passive.  That is, God doesn’t work in Pharaoh and create new evil in his heart.  Rather, God simply stops working in a positive sense in the heart of Pharaoh, and as a result, Pharaohs heart grows harder.  For example, when you apply water to hard soil, it will eventually become mud.  But, when you stop applying the water to the soil, and allow the sun to bake that soil, it will become hard again.  You see, the nature of the soil is hard already. By direct intervention on your part, the soil can be made soft and be turned into mud.  But, the lack of intervention on your part will result in the soil returning to its natural state:  hard.  The human heart is naturally hard.  The only way that it becomes soft is by the direct intervention of God.  But if God does not intervene, the heart will return to its natural state:  hard.  While some prefer to state that God is passive in the act of hardening here, or even in the act of reprobation, I believe we must always view God as active in everything that transpires.  In other words, if we want to say that God is passive in the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart or the reprobation of sinners in the sense that God does not force or create any more evil than is already present, fine.  However, God is still active in the sense that He has actively made a choice to act in a certain way, and not another way, toward Pharaoh and/or the reprobate.  And, we must also notice that Scripture does not say how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.  It simply asserts that God did it.  In order to do something, one must be active in some sense.  Doing is related to activity just as not doing is related to inactivity, and inactivity is related to passivity.  When it is maintained that God is solely passive in such things as the hardening of Pharaohs heart, the danger is to think of God as not doing anything. 

 

Exodus 34:24  “For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year.”

 

            -- God’s promise to Israel is that He will cast out the nations before them and enlarge their borders.  But, what about the free will of the inhabitants of those lands?  What if they somehow found the intestinal fortitude to thwart this plan?  God assures victory because God is sovereign.  What about after they go into the land—won’t they have to fear other people who may want to conquer them and take the land?  God says “neither shall any man desire thy land.”  If man has an absolutely free will, how can God say that no man would “desire” the land?  Some might argue because God knew beforehand that no man would desire the land.  But we must ask, how is it that God knew this beforehand?  The reason God knows things beforehand is because God has determined what will happen beforehand; He determines everything, even what the desires and free choices of men will be.

 

Deut. 2:30 “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him: for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as appeareth this day.”

 

            -- This is a similar scenario as that of Pharaoh, and the same explanation I provided with reference to Pharaoh applies here as well.

 

Deut 32:39 39 "See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” (NIV)

 

            -- God is sovereign in death, life, wounding and healing.  None can deliver from His hand.  God is the One who does things.  Where is man’s free will in this?  Where is man’s power in this?  Where is “synergy” in this?  All that occurs is but the outworking of Divine Providence, and there is no power in Heaven or on Earth that can change that (i.e., that can deliver out of His hand).

 

Joshua 11:19-20  19“There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. 20 For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

 

            -- God will accomplish His sovereign purposes, and He does so even by ensuring that “free moral agents” exercise their “free will” in the direction He so desires.  Here God hardens the hearts of the enemies of Israel.  The purpose for this was that “they might come against Israel in battle, that He might utterly destroy them.”

 

 Judges 7:22 “And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man's sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.”

 

            -- What would cause fellow soldiers to desire to slay each other, men who were sworn to protect one another and to fight side by side against their enemies?  Again we see that God, to ensure His sovereign purposes are accomplished, “set every man’s sword against his fellow…”  Where is “synergy” here? 

 

 

Judges 9:23 “Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech:”

 

            -- God accomplishes His purposes, period.  Here, he sends an “evil spirit” to cause dissension between Abimelech and the men of Shechem.  God’s purpose was to punish Abimelech, and this was the means whereby He was going to do it, and notice, it did not fail.

 

1 Samuel 23:11-12 “Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? will Saul come down, as thy servant hath heard? O Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the Lord said, He will come down. [12] Then said David, Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will deliver thee up.”

 

            -- So much for the “free will” of Saul, the men of Keilah, and of David!  God tells David what will surely come to pass in the immediate future, and these all involve the “free decisions” of the persons involved.  But the thing is, they could not choose the contrary.  The choices they would make were set before they ever made them.  How can that be said to be freedom in the sense in which you and other non-Reformed folks which to maintain?

 

2 Kings 19:25  “Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.”

 

            -- The Lord makes it clear that His purposes were conceived of  “long ago” and “of ancient times [He] formed it…”  Clearly when the Scripture states here “long ago” and “of ancient times” what is in view is before time even existed.  Notice, it is what God has done, and what He has formed.  Where is “synergy” here?

 

Ezra 7:27 “Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem:”

 

Job 23:13-15 (NKJV) “13 But He is unique, and who can make Him change? And whatever His soul desires, that He does. 14 For He performs what is appointed for me, And many such things are with Him. 15 Therefore I am terrified at His presence; When I consider this, I am afraid of Him.”

 

            -- Job asks “who can make Him change?”  What is in view is God’s sovereign decree’s from all eternity, for Job says, “He performs what is appointed for me…”  God is also the only Being in the universe with an absolutely “free will”, as Job declares, “whatever His soul desires, that He does.”  Finally, Job recognizes God’s absolute sovereignty in his life.  He recognizes that the only things that come to him are from the hand of Providence, “He performs what is appointed for me…” Simply put, God is the Potter, and we are the clay, and He does whatsoever He desires with the clay, and the clay cannot complain and say, “why did you make me this way?” (see Rom 9:20-21)

 

Job 37:13  “He causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or for mercy.”

 

            -- God is the ultimate cause of all things, and it is all for a purpose.

 

Psalm 22:28 “For the kingdom is the Lord's: and He is the governor among the nations.”

 

            -- It is important to realize that there is no earthly power that was not ordained of God, and is not ultimately subject to God’s direction, and that does not ultimately carry out God’s predetermined plans and purposes.  This is a difficult concept to grasp, particularly as we think about such governments as Emperor Nero of Rome and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. But, God’s providence works in and through all of those things.  To deny that would be to deny that God is actually governing the universe, or that He is the governor of among the nations.

 

Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple.”

 

            -- Notice two things here:  First, there is the aspect of God’s sovereign choice.  Second, God must “cause” (empower, enable, etc.) that one whom He has chosen to approach Him.  It is all the work of an absolutely sovereign God.  In this one verse, contained in the Old Testament, we see 2 of the 5 points of Reformed theology demonstrated (Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace).

 

Psalm 71:6  “By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art He that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of Thee.”

 

            -- The Psalmist recognizes that nothing but the power of a sovereign and gracious God has “held” him up since his birth.  He ascribes praise to God alone for this.  The non-Reformed view would have man holding himself up, and pulling himself up by his cooperative power. 

 

Psalm 94:8-12  “Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise? [9] He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see? [10] He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? [11] The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. [12] Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law;”

 

            -- God is the One who plants the natural ear and gives ears to hear (and gives us spiritual ears to hear). God is the One who forms the natural eye (and, gives us eyes to see spiritually).  And notice, being chastened and taught of the Lord is not something that is guaranteed for every single person who will ever live.  Rather, the verse says “blessed is the man whom thou…”  In other words, there are some that the Lord, according to His sovereign choice, does not chasten or teach.  The fact that He has chosen to chastise and teach one and not another is something that can only be attributed to the amazing grace of God, and it is to be looked upon by us as a blessing received from the hand of God.  As Reformation theology would then assert, “to God alone be the glory.”

 

Psalm 95:7 “For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.”

 

            -- We are His people, and His sheep, but notice, we are the sheep of His hand.  This speaks to the fact that it is God, and not we ourselves, who has formed us, and it is only the Sovereign Potter who can form us by His omnipotent hand into His sheep.

 

Psalm 100:3  “Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.”

 

Psalm 105:25  “He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.”

 

Psalm 115:3  “But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.”

 

Psalm 135:4-7  “For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure. [5] For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. [6] Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places. [7] He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain; he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.”

 

Proverbs 16:9 “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.”

 

Proverbs 16:33 “The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.”

 

Proverbs 21:1 “The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”

            -- Some might argue that God only does this to kings, but this would be a really bad argument.  The point is that even the most powerful among men, i.e., kings, are not able to hold back the hand of God, and are subject to God’s sovereign directing.  If the most powerful among us are nothing but putty in God’s hands, and God turns the kings heart wherever He wants to, how much more those who are the “weaker” among us? It seems almost absurd at this point to have to declare “God is control!” This is all that the Calvinist is saying. 

 

Isaiah 25:8 “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.”

 

            -- Whatever the Lord has spoken will come to pass.  There is no power in heaven, on earth, or below earth that can prevent God from swallowing up death in victory, wiping away tears from off all faces, and taking away the rebuke of His people from off the earth.  As a side note, notice the word “all.”  A common objection to the Reformed view is that Calvinists “redefine” words, and the anthem that is usually trumpeted over and over again is “all” means all!”  So ingrained is this type of narrow thinking by some people, that no matter how times it is demonstrated that the word “all” must be interpreted in its context, and that we must determine how the word “all” is being used, and that the word “all” doesn’t always refer to the same, the same thing is parroted over and over again:  “all means all!”  Be that as it may, I will try to set forth some basic concepts that must be adhered to if we are to have any hope of attaining a correct interpretation of this word “all.” 

 

First, we must determine “all” of “what.”  In other words, what is “all” referring to?  All dogs, all cats, all brown dogs, all gray cats, all Gentiles, all Jews, all people, all saved people, etc.  Non-Reformed people fail to qualify this.  When they see the word “all” in Scripture as it relates to salvation, they take it to mean that “all” refers to every single person who ever has or ever will live.  But, is this what the Scripture means?  In this verse quoted here, does the word “all” mean every single person who ever has or ever will live?  If the non-Reformed meaning is true, then that means that God will wipe away the tears from the face of every single person who ever has or ever will live, even those who die outside of Christ.  Obviously, unless one believes that every single person who ever has or ever will live will be saved, this verse cannot refer to every single person who ever has or ever will live.  It refers to every single person who ever has lived or will live whom God has chosen to save. 

 

Isaiah 14:27 “For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”

            -- God’s sovereign purposes will, not might, come to pass, and there is no power that can stop Him, to include the so-called “free” will of impotent, puny man who is like the grass of the field and whose life is but a vapor.  Non-Reformed theology seems to teach the exact opposite view.  What is implicit in that teaching is that the will of the creature is able to turn back God’s outstretched hand.  God’s purpose in saving an individual is frustrated over and over again in the non-Reformed view.  God purposes, but man’s “freewill” “disannuls” it all.  God’s hand is stretched out, and man turns it back. 

 

Isaiah 19:14-15  “The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit. [15] Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.”

 

Isaiah 37:26 “Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.”

 

Isaiah 45:9-10  “Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? [10] Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?”

 

Isaiah 50:4  “The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.”

 

Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

 

            -- This verse, strictly speaking, applies to Jeremiah.  However, the principles that can be gleaned from it are:

 

                        1.  God knows every human being before they are born, and He forms each one in the womb (and I agree with you Bill, a baby in the womb can indeed be filled with the Holy Ghost, e.g., John the Baptist).

                        2.  “before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…” Destinies are in the hand of the Lord, and He sets persons apart as He sees fit.

                        3.   “I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations..” God ordains persons to particular, specific functions, in this case Jeremiah was appointed by the Lord as a prophet.

                        4.  Where does free will fit into this?  It doesn’t.  A person has no control over when, where, how, and for what purpose they are born.  They have no control over the color of their eyes, hair or skin, no control over their height, no control over who their parents are, etc.  Why is that one person is a janitor, and the other person is the CEO of a corporation?  Granted, each one has to make choices in their life that has consequences, etc., but ultimately, what is the difference?  It is God. 

 

Jeremiah 32:17, 27 “[17] Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee…[27] Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”

 

            --  Is there anything too hard for God?  Evidently, some people believe that it is too hard for God to overcome the free will of man. 

 

Lam 3:37-38:  “37 Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?” (NIV)

           

-- A human cannot say something will come to pass unless decreed by God.  All things that occur happen only by God’s decree, whether good or bad.

 

Ezekiel 36:27 “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”

 

            -- This passage is also used to demonstrate the truth of Irresistible Grace.  In the passage, God is the active agent, and the individual is passive.  God is the cause of the individual walking in the statutes of the Lord, not the persons “free will.”  God is sovereign in this operation, for every single person that God puts His Spirit in will walk in His statutes.  Does every single person walk in God’s statutes?  No.  Only those whom God has placed His Spirit within. 

 

Dan 4:17 17 “'The decision is announced by messengers, the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.” (NIV)

 

Daniel 4:35 “And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”

 

Matthew 10:29-30 “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. [30] But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”

 

            -- Even the most insignificant, minute things are under the determination of God’s providence.

 

Matthew 11:25 “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.”

            -- God is sovereign over who will and will not receive His truth.

 

 Mark 4:10-12 “And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. [11] And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: [12] That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”

 

            -- How does this square with those who claim that God gives all (i.e., every single person who ever has or ever will live) an “opportunity” to be saved?  Again, God is sovereign over who will and who will not receive His truth.  In the final analysis God is revealing His truth to His sheep, not the goats, and His sheep, and not the goats, hear His word and follow Him.   Evangelism isn’t about making new sheep, it is about gathering God’s sheep that have been scattered abroad (John 11:52).

 

John 3:27 “John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”

 

            -- John the Baptist’s disciples are seemingly alarmed that the people are going to Jesus and not to John to be baptized.  John then tells them a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven, and then goes on to remind them of who he is, and who Jesus is.  The point though is that even in the face of John’s testimony about Jesus, John’s disciples did not pursue Jesus, and they were perplexed that the people were going to Jesus instead of John!  John’s response indicates that the only way a person would recognize and follow the Messiah is if it were “given him from heaven.”  The reason?  Man does not have the ability to receive (i.e., act on) ultimate spiritual truth; he must be empowered to do so.

 

John 12: 40  “…He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.”

 

Acts 2:22-23  “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: [23] Him, being delivered and by the determinate counsel foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:”

 

            -- This passage demonstrates two truths:  the absolute sovereignty of God and the responsibility of men.  .

 

Acts 3:18  “But those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled.”

            -- Any mention of prophecy and its fulfillment is a direct demonstration of the truth of the Reformed position because in order for prophecy to exist, certain things must be true:

                        1.  God has already determined what will happen.  In other words, things don’t happen merely because God knows that they will happen in advance.  The reason He knows what will happen in advance is because He has determined what will happen. 

                        2.  God is directing the affairs of man toward His predetermined purposes.

Prophecy then is an eloquent and direct refutation of the philosophically humanistic understanding of free will that much of the world and the church has embraced in these dark days.

 

Acts 4:27-28  “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, [28] For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.”

 

            -- Pilate, Herod, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel all had a choice to make, and the only choice that was possible for them to make was to do whatsoever God had determined before for them to do.  Their choice was free in the sense that they did precisely what they were inclined and desired to do at the moment.  It was also determined in the sense that God determined what would be their strongest desire at the moment (and thus what their choice necessarily would be).   Does this make us robots? No, it makes us persons who, while created in the image of God, are nevertheless not God, and who are subject to the providential control of God.

 

Acts 13:48 “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”

 

Romans 8:28-31 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. [29] For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. [30] Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. [31] What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”

 

Romans 9:11-18  “(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) [12] It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. [13] As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

    [14] What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. [15] For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. [16] So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. [17] For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. [18] Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”

 

Eph 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: [4] According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: [5] Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,”

 

Romans 11:36 “For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

 

            -- God has ordained all things that come to pass, and all things are directed toward bringing Him glory.

 

Philip. 2:13 “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”

 

2 Thes. 2:11-12 “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: [12] That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”

 

            -- The cause for one’s damnation rests squarely on the shoulders of the individual, but notice, even in that God seals their destiny by sending them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie.  By believing the lie, they believe not the truth, and because they believe not the truth, they have pleasure in unrighteousness, and because of this, they are damned.

 

1 Peter 1:20  “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,”

 

            -- This passage is referring to Jesus.  The plan of redemption was something that God conceived and brought to pass from before all eternity.

 

Jude 1:4 “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

            -- This is a difficult passage.  Jude tells us that there are certain false teachers who were teaching a false view of grace and were denying Christ.  What about these teachers though?  Does this all take God by surprise?  No.  These teachers were ordained to condemnation.  Some might argue that this is spoken of in general terms, that the punishment that has been ordained for all those who engage in such activity is condemnation.  However, the verse does not teach that.  It deals with specifics.  Jude says that “certain men…who were…ordained to this condemnation…”  The ordination is with reference to certain men (i.e., particular individuals), it was from “before of old” (i.e., before time existed), and it is unto condemnation.

 

Rev. 19:6 “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”

 

            -- The verse declares that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.  The question is, can one who does not hold to the absolute sovereignty of God in all things, to include salvation, really believe this?  Does the Lord God omnipotent reign, yes or no?  If He does, then that means by virtue of His omnipotence, nothing can thwart His purposes and all of His plans will come to pass without fail.  As it relates to salvation, that means, by virtue of His omnipotence, God will not fail to save every single person He has chosen to save.

 

 

The point of providing all of these verses is to simply demonstrate that the overwhelming teaching of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, is that God is the One who is in control of the affairs of human beings.  In a nutshell, God is absolutely sovereign.  Everything pertaining to human beings, from the governing of nations to the governing of individuals (most significantly individual salvation) is accomplished by the hand of Divine providence.  God is indeed the all-powerful, all-knowing, absolute sovereign of all creation.  Nothing and no one can thwart His purposes.  A.W. Pink, in defining God’s sovereignty in light of what the Bible clearly teaches with regard to it, states, “To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the Possessor of all power in heaven and earth, so that none can defeat His counsels, thwart His purpose, or resist His will…the sovereignty of the God of Scripture is absolute, irresistible, infinite…God does as He pleases, only as He pleases, always as He pleases:  that whatever takes place in time is but the outworking of that which He decreed in eternity.  “But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.” (Psalm 115:3).  

 

Many non-Reformed people, when confronted with these issues, still claim to believe in the sovereignty of God.  My reply is, how can that be?  The non-Reformed person cannot say that nothing can thwart the purposes of God, because it maintains that people, whom God desires to save, fail to get saved because of their “free will.”  The anti-Reformed position actually turns God into the biggest failure in the history of mankind, because He has not been able to bring about the salvation of those whom He has purposed to save. 

 

I realize that is a radical statement; however, I make this statement in light of what some very prominent non-Reformed people have actually taught, specifically, the Word of Faith teachers.  I realize that many non-Reformed people do not adhere to Word of Faith teaching. However, the proponents of the Word of Faith movement (Kenneth Copeland, Fredrick Price, etc.), at least understand the logical implications of maintaining that man’s will, and not God’s, ultimately is the deciding factor in what transpires in history.  Here are some quotes from them that are perfectly consistent with the non-Reformed view, and why I for one believe we are in need of another Reformation, where we recover the truth of God’s absolute sovereignty that is espoused solely in Reformation theology:

 

“God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on behalf of man…Yes!  You are in control!  So, if man has control, who no longer has it?  God...So, God cannot do anything in this earth unless we let Him.  And the way we let Him or give Him permission is through prayer.”  - Frederick Price

 

“I was shocked when I found out who the biggest failure in the Bible actually is…The biggest one in the whole Bible is God…Now, the reason you don’t think of God as a failure is He never said He’s a failure.  And you’re not a failure till you say you’re one.” – Kenneth Copeland

 

“God’s on the outside looking in.  He doesn’t have any legal entrée into the earth.  The thing don’t belong to Him.  You see how sassy the Devil was in the presence of God in the book of Job?  God said, Where have you been?  Wasn’t any of God’s business.  He (Satan) didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to.”  - Kenneth Copeland

 

“The Bible says that God gave this earth to the sons of men…and when (Adam) turned and gave that dominion to Satan, look where it left God.  It left Him on the outside looking in…He had no legal right to do anything about it, did He?…What Satan had intended for Him to was to fall for it—pull off an illegal act and turn the light off in God, and subordinate God to himself…He intended to get God into such a trap that He couldn’t get out.”  - Kenneth Copeland

 

“When Adam bowed the knee to Satan, he shut God out.  God found himself on the outside looking in.  His man, Adam, had lost his authority…God was left on the outside. God couldn’t come here in His divine power and wipe them out.  He had to move in an area where it would be ruled legal by the Supreme Court of the Universe.” – Charles Capps

 

Note:  The quotes above are drawn from the book “Christianity In Crisis” by Hank Hanegraaff.  He provides the precise sources where he drew the quotes from.   

 

Well, needless to say, that is a very different idea about God and His sovereignty.  The important thing to consider though is that the above quotes are in perfect harmony with the anti-Reformed understanding of the will of man and the sovereignty of God.  Though non-Reformed people may object to that observation, I challenge them to critique the above statements according to their own theological understanding of the human will and divine sovereignty, and see where there is any inconsistency.  What I believe they will discover is that the above quotes are merely the logical consequence of denying the deadness of man in sin and the absolute sovereignty of God.  The Word of Faith teachers are consistent Arminian’s/non-Reformational theologians.  They just have the guts to admit the logical conclusions of their unbiblical theology.

 

c.  Addresses and can demonstrate biblically where my position is unbiblical.

Note:  obviously, I am assuming that you’re a Christian and that you believe in the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible.  If these are not the case, then it will be impossible to do what I just mentioned above, for obvious reasons.

 

It is unbiblical because you have to revert to made up human theological terms such as “total depravity of man”. 

            -- Merely using a term to describe a teaching of the Bible does not make a position unbiblical.  That is a logical fallacy.  For example, later, you speak of “synergistic love.”  Is this not a human theological term or device you are using to express what you believe the Bible teaches?  Of course it is.  That’s not a problem, so long as we can provide the Biblical texts that prove the point.  Also, what are we to make of the word “Trinity” or “Triune?”  Unless I misread, you use those words, Bill.  Where are those words in the Bible?  Where are the words “plural unity” found in the Bible, Bill?  Again, this is just another logical fallacy on your part aimed not at truly trying to understand and addressing the issues, but at dispensing in a rather unfair way a theology that you do not like.  Based on all you have written, my advice is to first learn (in order to understand and not misrepresent it, as you have done pretty much throughout) the position/theology you are trying to critique, and then try to answer that theology, not with ad hominen and other irrelevant arguments (e.g., that “word” isn’t in the Bible, therefore, the position is incorrect, etc.), but by providing a faithful exposition of the texts in question.   

 

If grace is irresistible then why do you sin? Each day? Every day? You resist the Spirit of Grace Himself.  So how can you say grace is irresistible? Unless God is withholding grace from you because you are not one of the elect?

                        -- Your statements are based on a classic misunderstanding of what is meant by irresistible grace (another reason why the acronym is more trouble than it’s worth, and another reason why I encouraged you earlier, and will encourage throughout this, to actually learn the position you are critiquing).  Irresistible grace is about the regenerating power of God’s Spirit, as Paul says in Eph 2:1, “but you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin,” and what Jesus called being born again of the Spirit (John 3:3).  Sinful man always resists the Holy Spirit—that’s the whole point—what is needed is conquering grace, and what God does in regeneration is that He overcomes our resistance, hence, it is this grace that is said to be irresistible.  If a person is dead, they do not resist being brought back to life. 

 

The raising of Lazarus serves as an illustration.  Lazarus was dead, in the tomb for some 4 days.  Jesus called out his name and told him to come forth.  This calling forth by Jesus was effectual, in that it was accompanied by the very power of the omnipotent creator of heaven and earth.  The only thing Lazarus could do at the command of the God-Man to come forth (i.e., live) was…live!  Lazarus couldn’t make a “freewill” choice to reject being brought back to life.  Now, spiritually, the same thing is similar.  We are described as dead in our trespasses and sin.  Jesus describes those that are outside of Him as dead (Matt 8:22).  One who is dead in this sense, does not, and cannot, come to Christ.  When Jesus approached Lazarus’ tomb, all of the pleading and wooing in the world would not have caused Lazarus to come to Jesus because…he was dead.  He had to first be raised to life.  This is the same spiritually for us.  No amount of “wooing” or pleading will work with a dead sinner, because they are deaf and blind to the things of the Spirit.  They are dead to the things of the Spirit.  We must first be made alive, raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, regenerated, born again, before we will ever do anything related to the ultimate spiritual good.  All irresistible grace teaches is that at the moment God, in His own time, decides to regenerate an individual, or make an individual spiritually alive, He never fails to accomplish it.  Even those who disagree with the Reformed conclusion must still hold to some form of irresistible grace, because even non-Reformed theologies maintain that regeneration is something that never fails to take place.  In their case, every person who places saving faith in Christ is then regenerated.  Like it or not, that is irresistible grace.  The only real difference is how regeneration takes place.  The Reformed maintain that it is all of grace, and that the means God uses to raise His people is primarily the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, for faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17).  For the non-Reformed, a person first receives Christ, then upon that reception they are necessarily born again.  It is some of grace, and some of man.  It is faith first, then regeneration.  But, as I believe I have demonstrated throughout, that order is simply impossible.  Jesus said, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me…”  Please note Jesus’ words carefully:

 

1. Who is it that comes to Jesus?  Answer:  All that the Father gives to Him.  Just in that one statement we have one of the clearest statements on predestination to be found anywhere in the Bible. 

2.  Please note that Jesus does not say that those given to Him by the Father “might” come to Him.  Rather, He says that they “will” come to Him.  They cannot fail to come to Jesus.  That is all “irresistible” grace is teaching. 

 

As for why we still sin in our Christian lives, you are confusing categories.  Regeneration is one thing, sanctification is another.  Irresistible grace has absolutely nothing to do with sanctification; it pertains solely to regeneration, not sanctification.  I would greatly encourage you to carefully read Reformed teachers if you want to both understand what is taught, and then not misrepresent (as you have here) what is taught.  With this in mind, I would recommend the following:

 

Putting Amazing Back Into Grace by Michael Horton – This is by far the best presentation I have seen.  Though you may disagree profoundly with the conclusions, I think you will at least appreciate the spirit in which he writes, and you will have one of the most accessible statements on the doctrines of grace to be found anywhere.  You may even find some things worthwhile. J

Amazing Grace DVD – An extremely well done DVD series that clearly presents the doctrines of grace and interacts with some of the more common objections.  Again, though you may disagree with the conclusions, I really believe that overall, you will find this series to be quite enjoyable and money well spent.

The Doctrines of Grace by James Montgomery Boice and Philip Ryken.  Very well written and worth your time.

The Potters Freedom by James White – This is a book written in response to Norman Geisler’s book Chosen But Free.  Overall, I like the book, however, it is a polemical work, so some of White’s commentary may sound confrontational.  The benefit of this book for you will be that you will be able to see some of the most common arguments against Calvinism, and then see a scholarly response.  White also has a critique of Chosen But Free on line that you can listen to, where he spent about 8 radio programs working through it all:  http://www.straitgate.com/geisler/

TULIP:  The Pursuit of God’s Glory In Salvation by John Piper - This is a series of audio lectures.  Piper deals methodically with the issues and objections.  Very helpful: 

http://www.desiringgodstore.org/store/index.cgi?cmd=view_item&parent=8-49&id=548  

 

 

2.  Bill, what do you mean by “freewill?”  The reason I ask this is because most people when they speak on these issues really do not have an accurate understanding of what Reformed theology teaches about freewill.  I have also discovered that very often, their view of freewill cannot be reconciled with truth of God’s absolute sovereignty and omniscience.  Thus, I would respectfully ask you, what do you mean by freewill, and can you reconcile your notion of freewill with the testimony of Scripture regarding God’s absolute sovereignty and omniscience?

 

John, of course I am talking about Biblical freewill: “For if we sin by our ‘freewill’ after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins”.  Hebrews 10:26.  The word ‘freewill’ in Hebrews 10:26 is the same word used in the law and the prophets for ‘freewill’ offering.  By my own ‘freewill’ I can offer myself unto God and yield my will to God as a ‘freewill’ offering, or I can resist the grace of God (the Spirit of Grace or the Holy Ghost) and reject Christ.

 

--  Reformed theology does not deny the concept of freewill.  I will describe what freewill is from a Reformed (biblical) perspective a bit later (actually, I describe it in the article I wrote that is linked in my last response to you.  If you want, you can just read that.  If you can demonstrate where my analysis is not correct, please feel free).  But for now, what I asked you was what precisely do you mean by the term freewill, and can that understanding be reconciled with the concept of a God who has determined events to take according to the counsel of His will (Acts 2:22-23; Eph 1:11; Dan 4:34, etc.).  Your statement does not speak to those issues at all. 

 

You state:  “The word ‘freewill’ in Hebrews 10:26 is the same word used in the law and the prophets for ‘freewill’ offering.”   No it’s not.  The word used in the Septuagint for a “freewill” offering (example Num 15:3) is the Greek word “exousios” which means “voluntarily, willingly” (ref The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament).  The Greek word used in Heb 10:26 is “exousiws.” It is derived from exousios, but it does not refer to or mean the same thing.  Exousiws means intentionally, and refers to sins committed willingly, i.e., those done designedly and deliberately in the face of better knowledge (same reference).  Not only are the words different and convey different meanings, but two different contexts are in view.  The offering spoken of in the Law was called a freewill offering because it was an offering that was not made under compulsion.  The text in Heb 10:26 speaks of those who willfully sin (that is, with complete malice of forethought).  The sin in view was a turning back to the Law from the Gospel.  Thus, not only are the words themselves different, but as is always the case, even if the words were exactly the same, the words are found in entirely different contexts, and context drives the meaning of any given passage.  Your answer also fails to describe how it is a person actually makes choices, and how those choices are said to be “free” in any meaningful sense given the fact that God has exhaustive knowledge of all future events (He even knows my thoughts before I think them). 

 

Now to address more of the specifics of your comments:

 

I am talking about Biblical freewill: “For if we sin by our ‘freewill’ after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins”.  Hebrews 10:26.  

 

--  First, who is being addressed in the context of Heb 10:26?  Obviously, the word “we” refers to those individuals who have given every outward indication of being Christians (in this case, Hebrew Christians). 

 

Secondly, I believe you have taken liberties with the text (which I have already demonstrated by pointing out that your claim that the words in this passage and that describing the freewill offering in the OT are not the same, as you incorrectly assert), and changed it to read what you would like it to read in order to promote your freewill theology.  The text does not read “For if we sin by our ‘freewill’…”  I cannot find any translation that translates the verse the way you have.  The verse literally reads:  Ekousiws gar hamartanonton emov meta ta labein ten epignosin tes aletheias (willfully for sinning us after receiving the full knowledge of the truth).  Your mistranslation seriously distorts the point the author is trying to make.  What is in view is the sin of those who, after having a full knowledge of the truth (i.e., after having been so thoroughly exposed to and taught the Gospel of Christ), nevertheless were acting in direct contradiction to what the they had received (the Gospel). 

 

Also, what you fail to realize, Bill, is that Calvinists affirm that every choice a person makes is a choice that is said to be free in accordance with the individual’s nature and desires.  The only way any person sin’s is by their own “freewill,” i.e., their desire to sin was stronger than their desire to not sin.  Heb 10:26 doesn’t stop here though.  It is saying that there are those who have a full knowledge of the Gospel who nevertheless turn back to the weak and beggarly elements of the Old Covenant.  Their sin is willful in the sense that it is done in direct opposition to what they ought to know is right.  Their actions are deliberate.  There are those who are steeped in false religions that have never been exposed to the truth of the Gospel.  They are not deliberately turning from the Gospel back to their old religion, for a very simple reason:  they do not have a knowledge of the Gospel.  

 

Your mistranslation would imply first that no one ever sins, because you say “for if we sin by our own freewill.”  Well, Bill, how else is it that any person commits any sin?  Of course we sin by our own freewill!  Second, your mistranslation causes us to lose the entire point of the passage.  The passage is not talking about how we sin (i.e., always by our own freewill), but about a particularly grievous kind of sin:  turning away from the Gospel despite having a full knowledge of the Gospel.  Third, your mistranslation itself is a serious matter in that you are inaccurately handling the Word of God, and actually changing its contents.  I would encourage you to repent.

 

“Absolute sovereignty” what Bible verse are you quoting? I quoted quite a few above that clearly teach that God is in absolute control of the universe and over the affairs of men.  The words “absolutely sovereignty” are just shorthand for describing what the entire Bible teaches about the nature of God.  Instead of simply bowing the knee before the awesome and majestic throne of the sovereign King, natural man, in all of his self-righteousness and pride, will always rail against God’s sovereign rule, and will devise one false philosophy after another to either minimize God’s sovereignty, or do away with it altogether.  To minimize God’s sovereignty, of course, is to do away with it altogether in whatever sense or aspect it is being minimized, and whatever is being put in place of God’s sovereignty at that point is in essence sovereign, and, in essence, God.  Thus, freewill theology robs God of His sovereignty in salvation, exalts man and his “power,” and in effect makes man the captain of his own ship, the one true sovereign over the earth, and, in essence, it makes man “God.”  It is the old lie from the Garden of Eden:  “You shall be like God…”  Man is bent on being God, and in free will theology, he can further deceive himself to that end.

 

Do you mean the subjection of all things under God? Hebrews 2:8: ‘“You have put all things in subjection under His feet.’ For in that He put all in subjection under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him.  But now we do not yet see all things put under Him. ” I Corinthians 15:24: “Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.  For He must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet.  The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.”

The rule and reign of God through Christ is coming, that is why we pray “Thy kingdom (rule and reign) come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

            -- The two passages you quoted will work quite fine for me, not to mention the numerous texts I quoted above.  First, are you maintaining that God is not absolutely sovereign?  If He is not, then who is it that is governing the affairs on the earth?  Has God gone off to read the newspaper?  Is He not ruling and reigning right now, and causing His Kingdom to advance?  If He is not causing His Kingdom to advance, who is? 

 

As for Heb 2:8, what we have is the already/not yet distinctive.  All things have been put under His feet (already).  However, in terms of the culmination of events and redemptive history, there is more that is to be done (thus, we do not see all things put under Him).  Please note who it is that does not see all things put under Him.  It is “we”.  Who is the “we”?  People in general and Christ’s people in particular.  Now, how is that which is objectively true (He has put all things under His feet), to be made manifest to us?  By Christ ruling and reigning in the hearts of His people and accomplishing the Great Commission, finally culminating in His return in power and glory.  By ignoring the distinction that is found in this passage, as well as throughout the Bible, we cause this passage, as well as the rest of Scripture, to contradict itself.  Just because we can’t see that all things have been put into subjection to Him doesn’t meant that they have not been put into subjection to Him.  They have.  And because they have, that which is objectively true will be seen by us.  And please note, the one who is doing all of this is God. 

 

The next passage you quote simply confirms precisely what I am saying here.  Note, the passage states clearly that Christ is reigning.  However, there is a movement in this reign.  God is working in space-time history to bring His determined purpose to fruition, and He will consummate it all at the second coming of Christ.  By the way, why is this happening this way?  Why didn’t Christ just establish the new heavens and new earth when He rose from the grave?  Because that was not the plan, and He is waiting until all of the elect come into the kingdom before He consummates everything (2 Pet 3:1-13).

 

As for the Lord’s Prayer, the reason we pray “Your kingdom come, etc.” is because we are praying for God’s redemptive purposes to be established throughout the earth.  It isn’t that there is a possibility that His redemptive purposes will not come, but that they have come, and we are subjects of that that kingdom and we rejoice in the King and His kingdom, and long for His kingdom to be manifested throughout the earth. Again we also see the already/not yet distinction.  God’s kingdom has come, and God is reigning in the hearts of His people.  However, that kingdom is advancing, and awaits its consummation, when that which is invisible will be made visible.  Even so, come Lord Jesus.

 

By the way, to maintain that God is not ruling and reigning now has huge ramifications.  Again, who is it that is control of the affairs on earth?  And again, if God is not, then who is?  Basically, to assert that God is not ruling and reigning now is nothing more, in essence, than Atheism.  Atheism simply means “without God.” This is why I maintain that at the end of the day, there are really only 2 consistent worldviews:  Biblical Christianity (i.e., Reformed Theology) and Nihilism.  If one denies Reformed theology, the only logical place for them to go is Nihilism.   

 

3.  It must be admitted by every Christian, Reformed or not, who believes that God is indeed sovereign, and all knowing, that God has indeed ordained all things that come to pass, to include all of the sin and evil that we see.  There are no maverick molecules or autonomous atoms running around in the universe (Matt 10:29-30; Acts 17:28).  Every thing, from the smallest to grandest, is under the providential rule and ultimate control of an absolutely sovereign and omnipotent God who does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.   If this were not the case, then God would not be sovereign in any meaningful sense, and He would in fact be completely powerless to bring about anything that He so desired (For example, take all of the prophetic statements in the Bible.  How could God state that certain events would take place without fail if man’s will were absolutely free/autonomous?  Obviously, God must be sovereign over and in the choices of men, otherwise, God’s eternal plan and purpose could and would be thwarted). 

 

See above on sovereign.  I am sovereign over my watch.  If it is out of time I can take a sledgehammer and smash in into bits or I can synergistically work with it until it is no longer out of time.  Both acts result in a watch that is no longer out of time.  Both are sovereign acts. Which one do you think is a better parable of God’s synergistic love?  

-- Forgive me Bill, but I do not believe you really addressed seriously my statements above.  You did not deal with Matt 10:29-30 or Acts 17:28, and you did not deal with my citation of Dan 4:34 (which I merely stated in the flow of my response, because all that I said is in perfect conformity to that passage).  With reference to Daniel 4:34, here is what I said:

 

“Every thing, from the smallest to grandest, is under the providential rule and ultimate control of an absolutely sovereign and omnipotent God who does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.”  (the bold and italics are a direct quote from Daniel 4:34).  You also failed to deal with the argument about prophecy.  Any single instance of prophecy is enough to completely overturn what you have been saying about freewill, sovereignty, cause and effect, etc.  Let me just ask simply:  does God have exhaustive knowledge of the future?  If so, how is it that He has that knowledge, and can it be said that man has a freewill in the sense that you seem to be maintaining?  Even if I grant the non-Reformed view of divine foreknowledge, how does that relieve you from having to answer the same questions posed to Calvinists?  I mean, even if God’s foreknowledge is only one whereby He is nothing more than the divine video watcher, who knows what will happen because he has viewed the video tape so to speak, He still decided to create that universe which He knew would exist with all of the evil, etc., and if that is the case, then how is that God is not the ultimate cause of everything?  

 

Also your use of synergism here is spurious at best.  In theological terms, synergy is where two equal powers work together to bring about a desired effect.  A watch is inanimate, therefore, your using it to illustrate synergism simply won’t work. 

 

Not only that, your use of the illustration may actually prove too much for you, for in reality you only make the Calvinists case.  In order for the watch to keep time, you must monergistically wind the watch, because the watch lacks the power to wind itself.  Now, you can stand there all day long and plead with the watch to wind itself, but, obviously, it won’t do anything in that regard, because it is unable to comply with your command.  Thus, you must exert power on the watch to cause it to keep time…you must wind the watch.  The watch simply responds with the necessary effects of your winding…it now keeps the time.  In salvation, the similar is true.  We are all watches that no longer keep the time, and, just like the watch, we are utterly unable to wind ourselves up in order that we might keep the time.  In order for that, God must monergistically bring His power to bear upon us, and “wind” us, so to speak.  In biblical terms, this is referred to as God taking out our stony heart and giving us a heart of flesh.  The work is completely God’s, and the effect that is brought about by God’s monergistic work is that we do precisely what you mentioned earlier:  we have our will liberated, and we willingly submit and yield to God whereas before we could not do that.  And who is it that receives all of the glory for this?  It is God. 

 

As for your sledgehammer misrepresentation of the Reformed view, I could argue that this is precisely what you do with the grace of God:  you smash it to bits under the pagan, humanistic sledgehammer of creaturely “free will.”  Nothing of God’s grace is left.   

 

4.  As I read your statement, I thought of some things that I think your statement implies.   It seems to me that (whether you meant to convey this or not, I don’t know, I’m just stating what I see as an implication of what you said) that your statement implies that since you believe that you have freewill (whatever that means), then according to what I believe about God’s absolute sovereignty, God would have decreed that you have that belief, which would mean, from my view, that God has decreed that you have a wrong belief about Him and freewill.

 

And so, we could ask, how could God decree that I, you, or anyone else, have a wrong belief about something?  Or, to put it in even stronger terms, how could God ordain that there be sin and evil?  Now, I certainly am not trying to put words in your mouth.  Again, I am just trying to state the things that came to my mind as read your comment.  Well, let’s assume for the moment that my understanding of “freewill” is incorrect.  If I say something that is not correct about God, or man, or any other topic for that matter, then what have I done?  I have sinned.  I have given false testimony concerning a certain matter (in this case, the nature of “freewill,” and by extension, the nature of God).  Now, the question is, did God ordain that to be the case?  Absolutely.  He has ordained all things that come to pass, even sin and evil, for His own purpose, and ultimately His own glory (Eph 1:11; Rom 9:22-23).  I deal further with this issue in an article I wrote that is posted on my website entitlted “How Do You Reconcile Divine Sovereignty With Human Free Will?”  So, God, as the first cause of all things, ensured that my belief would be incorrect.

 

Let the Apostle filled with the Holy Ghost speak and let everyone be silent: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.”

 

If you say God is the cause of everything, then when you are tempted, the cause of your temptation is God.  Well such teaching is against the divine revelation that says that even though you are tempted God does not cause your temptation.

Yes, I know that Calvinism is internally consistent, but is it consistent with divine revelation?  Now I want to hear it from you.  Did God cause your temptation to sin today and did He cause you to yield to that temptation?

 

-- God has ordained the arena where moral agents operate, determined their boundaries, and ensured through the most wise, holy, and unsearchable depths of His providence, that all that transpires in time would be only that which He does ordain.  To believe otherwise is to embrace atheism.  So, in that sense, God is the ultimate “cause” of everything, for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.  However, the fault does not lie in God, and God is not the one who is said to actually tempt anyone.  Please read the passage very carefully.  It says clearly that no one is tempted by God.  God is not the agent who is actually doing the tempting, some other agent (the devil, etc.) is.  However, those agents that are actually doing the tempting have no power to tempt, or to do anything, except by the providence of God.  Hence, as Luther maintained, the devil is just God’s lackey.  He is on leash, and can only go as far as the Lord has determined him to go, and wherever he goes, it is with a view to accomplishing the purposes of God.  This is seen throughout the Bible.

 

Now, just from a human analogy, if I write a play where one character tempts another character, let us ask, who is it that is doing the tempting?  It is the character in the play who is doing the tempting, not me.  However, who is the ultimate cause of the events?  I am, because I have written the play.  Now, if you maintain, as I think you do, that God has exhaustive foreknowledge of all things, then how can you maintain something other than what I am maintaining here?  You see, any mention of God’s exhaustive foreknowledge means that all events, from the fall of man, to the redemptive work of Christ on the cross, to the final consummation, to my temptation, means that all of those things have been determined beforehand.  Before time even began God knew what would transpire, and the only reason any of it has transpired is because God has determined to have it all transpire in space-time history.  It is in that sense that God is the ultimate cause of everything.  Unless you want to maintain that God does not know the future, or that God could have not created the world in which He knew there would be all of the things we see.  The fact is, God did create the world we now see, with the full and exhaustive knowledge of everything that would come to pass.  And not only that, but, as I mentioned before, even one mention of prophecy moves God’s foreknowledge out of the realm of “simple,” in which God’s foreknowledge is completely passive, as if He were watching a video for the 5th time and, just as we know what happens in the movie by virtue of having watched it, God also knows what will happen.  God’s foreknowledge is never spoken of in that way.  The reason God foreknows the future is because He has determined the future.  He has determined the purpose of all things, and before any of it came to be, from God’s perspective, it was settled. 

 

Maybe some more poignant examples would be those people we see interacting with Jesus throughout His earthly ministry, such as the Pharisees and others who rejected Him, and His disciples. 

 

If the Pharisees and others rejecting Jesus was due to the fact that no one knows the Father except Son, and the one to whom the Son will to reveal Him (see Matt 11:25-27), then how can it be said that they had the ability, by the power of their “freewill” to, as you say, “reject God’s grace or yield to God’s grace.  And all of this for God’s glory!” when in fact the only thing that they were capable of doing was yielding to their temptation and rejecting God’s grace, and hence they were unable to yield to God’s grace?  As a matter of fact, in that passage (Matt 11:25-27), Jesus says that God has hidden these things (referring to salvation) from some, and has revealed them to others, and, this was actually good in His sight.  Here then we see that what glorifies God is not that we have the “freewill” to either reject or yield to God’s grace (because ultimately, the only thing that we can do by the power of our “freewill” is reject God’s grace), but that God has freely and sovereignly exercised His divine and sovereign rights and prerogatives as the Potter and is fashioning the clay as He sees fit (Rom 9:18-21), and has determined who it is that He is going to enable to “yield” to His grace. This is why we, as Calvinists, in accordance with the manifest testimony of Scripture, say that salvation is entirely of grace (undeserved favor), and that God receives all of the glory for it, because no flesh shall glory in His presence.  

 

To illustrate this even further, in John 10, Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees who have rejected Him, and He tells them first that He is the good shepherd who knows His sheep, and He is known by His own (John 10:14).  He then tells them in verse 15 that He lays down His life for His sheep (not the goats), and that it is Christ Himself who must bring His sheep to Himself (John 10:16) (but, why must Christ bring them if they have the power by their freewill to either reject or yield to God’s grace?).  After stating these things, the Pharisees begin to argue among themselves and finally they just ask Him if He is indeed the Christ (verses 19-24).  Jesus’ response is most telling.  He first tells them that despite His works which bear witness to the fact that Jesus was indeed the Christ, they nevertheless do not believe (verse 25).  Why don’t they believe?  Jesus says, “you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep…My sheep hear My voice…” (v. 26-27).  Here we see the classic law of cause and effect dramatically illustrated.  It’s not that a person believes (i.e., yield to God’s grace) in order to become a sheep.  He or she believes precisely because they already are one of Christ’s sheep.  The effect of believing is due to the cause of being a sheep, and a person is made a sheep by the sovereign election of God from the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4; John 6:37; John 17:2, etc., etc., etc.).

 

Not only did the Pharisees and others reject Christ, and handed Him over to be crucified, but this all took place by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God.  If this was all according to the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, how can we then say that those who actually rejected Jesus (i.e., the Pharisees), betrayed Jesus (i.e., Judas), denied Jesus three times (i.e., Peter) had the autonomous freedom of will to do otherwise? The Scriptures declared the betrayal by Judas centuries before it happened.  So, could Judas have done otherwise?  Jesus told Peter that he would deny Christ three times before the cock crowed.  So, could Peter have done otherwise? Obviously, the answer to those questions is no, and if that is the case, how can we say that man’s will is “free” in the sense that most people seem to think?  

 

If all of these things…all of these sins (which are the result of having been tempted), occurred according to the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, then your argument isn’t with “Calvinism,” but with God and the Bible.  Your question is the same in essence as the question stated in Romans 9:19, “You will say to me then, why does He still find fault?  For who has resisted His will?”  It is only by understanding that there are first and secondary causes that we can have any hope of putting all of these difficult concepts together. 

 

Foreknowledge and foreordination are not the same thing. If I look out the window of a plane and see two trains rounding a mountain bend on the same track…I foreknow that they will crash…however I have not foreordained them to crash.  God foreknows our freewill choices and His purposes are not thwarted.  God synergistically works everything together are our good.  God does not monergistically work anything; that’s a Gnostic idea.

 

-- First, you are again confusing categories by essentially equating the foreknowledge that mere creatures like us may have with that of the omnipotent, omniscient, almighty God of heaven and earth.  This is really the fundamental difference between a Reformed and non-Reformed understanding of both God and man.  Any view of absolute foreknowledge already demolishes any concept of synergy, because all of the events that take place must take place of necessity, and they must take place because that is what God knows will take place, and what actually takes place God knew would take place, and because He knew it beforehand, what takes place is only that that He wants to take place.  We can speak of synergy all we want then, but it is simply empty rhetoric and wishful thinking when we speak of a God who already knows what will take place, because in that case, everything has already been determined.  If God knows my choice before hand, and knows what I will choose tomorrow, how is it that I have the freedom of will to do otherwise in the sense that it is a real possibility that I could do otherwise?  Obviously, I do not.  And this is why people are embracing Open Theism.  They realize that if God knows the future exhaustively, then libertarian free will is simply a myth.  In order though for them to continue holding to their mythological view of libertarian freewill, they must turn the God of the Bible into one of the mythological gods of Greece, and rob Him of both His absolute sovereignty and exhaustive knowledge of all things.  In their view, God is nothing more than a glorified superman.

 

Second, with regard to foreknowledge and foreordination, I agree that they are different, however, they are bound together nevertheless.  There are two senses in which foreknowledge is understood biblically.  There is the knowledge of persons that God has beforehand.  This “knowledge” is a knowledge of intimacy (i.e., Adam lay with Eve and “knew” her), so that the concept that is being taught is one of God loving someone beforehand, and not that He knew their actions beforehand (though He certainly does).  The other sense of foreknowledge is where God has absolute, exhaustive knowledge of all things that have, are, and will occur, before they ever do occur. 

 

Foreordination refers to that which God planned and purposed from the foundation of the world.  This is, as I understand it, the Divine decree, as aptly expressed by the Apostle Peter in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost:  “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” (Acts 2:23, KJV)  The words “determinate counsel” are also rendered as “set purpose” (NIV), “predetermined plan” (NAS), and “determined purpose” (NKJV).  These are all essentially saying the same thing, though I believe that the NAS rendering captures the meaning better than the others.  The Westminster Confession states the teaching clearly and concisely, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” (WCF, Chapt 3, Sec 1). The point is that in the counsel of the Godhead, before anything existed, God had a perfect plan and a purpose that He infallibly implemented, and infallibly brings to pass.  You may wish to deny that, but to do so leaves you with something far less than the God of the Bible.

 

Now, though foreknowledge and foreordination are different, they are inseparably connected.  We must ask the simple questions:  what is it that God knows will happen, and how does God know what will happen?  The answer to both is that God foreknows that which He foreordains.  In other words, the reason God knows the future exhaustively is because He has exhaustively determined what will occur in the future.  Everything that transpires in time is according to His the determinate counsel/set purpose/predetermined plan of an infinitely wise, holy, loving, and sovereign God, who has ordained the end, as well as the means to reach the end.

Third, you say, “Foreknowledge and foreordination are not the same thing. If I look out the window of a plane and see two trains rounding a mountain bend on the same track…I foreknow that they will crash…however I have not foreordained them to crash.”  Not only does your illustration “humanize” God in that you equate human foreknowledge with divine foreknowledge, but the illustration also fails to demonstrate the very thing it is speaking about:  foreknowledge.  You see, if you looked out of window in a plane and saw 2 trains rounding a mountain bend on the same track, you do not foreknow that they will crash.  You may have a pretty good idea that they might crash, but the fact that they do crash is altogether unknown to you.  That is not foreknowledge.  That is just an educated guess based on compelling facts.  The trains in question may not crash at all.  Maybe one derails and falls completely off of the track.  Maybe the conductors discover the dilemma and are able to apply the breaks in time.  Maybe the Lord will return before they crash!  In other words, you really don’t know for certain that they will crash.  Foreknowledge means that you have a certain knowledge of future events.  So, not only would you be able to see the trains heading toward one another, but you would also infallibly know that they would indeed crash.  Not only would you know that, but you would know precisely how many people died, the exact nature of injuries, how many emergency response personnel responded and the precise routes they took to get there, etc.  In short, you would already know an infinite amount of information about every single facet of human existence before any single event ever occurs. 

Also, you say that you “have not foreordained them to crash…”  Of course you didn’t Bill, for a couple of very simply reasons:  1.  As noted, you have not even described foreknowledge.  2.  You are a mere man, who lacks the sovereign power to do so.  The best man can do is come up with plans, but even those are subject to the absolute sovereignty of God.  Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but the Lord determines his steps. (Prov 16:9; 19:21; 20:24).  3.  God has known every single thing that would transpire every single millisecond in history before “history” even began, not because those things happened as if He watched a movie, but because He determined what would transpire in history, and those things that transpire could not be otherwise.   

Next you say, “God foreknows our freewill choices and His purposes are not thwarted.”   That, my friend, is Calvinism.  God has a certain, fixed, and exhaustive knowledge of all of the choices that we will ever make (which are said to be “free” in the sense that we make actually make them, and we make them according to our strongest desire at the moment), and God’s purposes are most certainly established and cannot be overcome by anything.  No matter how one may try (as you have), the conclusion of Reformed theology simply cannot be escaped by any person who takes the Bible seriously, which you have demonstrated here.  The only escape is to embrace Open Theism, or Atheistic Nihilism, but this is paramount to cursing God and dieing.   

Then you say, “God synergistically works everything together are our good.  God does not monergistically work anything; that’s a Gnostic idea.”  It appears you are borrowing a bit from Rom 8:28, “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose…”  Question:  who is it that is said to be working here?  God.  Is there any other active power that is at work?  No.  God is the sole “worker.”  The entire passage of Rom 8:28-34 is pure monergism.  God is the active working agent, and “those who are the “called” are being acted upon.  Thus, what you keep incorrectly calling a Gnostic idea is in reality the Biblical idea.  If any one single event is determined from all eternity, then that is enough to demonstrate monergism.  The concept of synergism cannot be found in any single passage I quoted earlier. Synergism, as it relates to salvation, is simply not a biblical idea.  The very word “saved” itself should be enough to demonstrate that.  When a fireman saves a person from a burning building who has been rendered incapacitated by smoke inhalation, the fireman can be said to be performing a monergistic work.  He, and he alone, saved the person who was unable to save himself from the burning building.  God “saved” us, not according to our works, but according to His mercy which He poured out on us in Christ.  Were not merely incapacitated, but we were dead.  God rescued us by pulling us out of the burning building, and then breathing life into us, raising us to spiritual life.  That is the Gospel, pure and simple.  All of God, all of Christ, all of the Spirit, all of grace from beginning to end.  God and God alone planning and accomplishing all of our salvation in Christ. 

 

… Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

 

Please reread the background passages in the Exodus concerning how God hardens hearts.  God synergically hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Pharaoh hardened his own heart) and God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by mercy and grace. Exodus 5:15 “But when Pharaoh saw that there was mercy and grace, he hardened his heart.”  

 

    Actually, your reference is incorrect.  You are quoting Exodus 8:15, not 5:15.  Even if it were 5:15, that would still not be the first time that the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is mentioned.  The very first time is in Exodus 4:21, “And the LORD said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.” First, we notice that God states His purpose and what will transpire before it ever happens.  Where does that leave the libertarian freewill of any single individual in the text (whether it is Moses, Aaron, the Israelites, the Egyptians, etc.)?  It leaves it non-existent, because not one single individual could actually choose a thing contrary to what God’s fore determined will and purpose were and are.  They only have “free will” in the sense that I have spoken of throughout (which, in theological terms, has been called the “compatiblist view.”  This link http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/freewill.html contains numerous articles and will provide a great overview for you, if, for nothing else, to at least give you an accurate view of what we believe instead of laboring under the false conceptions you currently have, which have resulted in the bulk of your response to me.).

Second, according to this passage, who is the active agent, and who is the passive agent?  God is the only active agent in the passage.  There is nothing synergistic about what is stated.  It is pure monergism.  The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart was not something that Pharaoh “cooperated” in, rather, it was something that God sovereignly accomplished in Pharaoh.  Now, this does not mean that God did not use certain means to accomplish His hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, nor does it mean that Pharaoh did not want to harden his heart, nor does it mean that God created fresh evil in Pharaoh’s heart.  Rather, Pharaoh, like the rest of us prior to regeneration, was already a God-hater, and enemy of God who would not, because he could not, embrace the things of God (Rom 3:10-18; 1 Cor 2:14).  He, like the rest of us, already had a heart of stone (a heart doesn’t get much harder than stone).  In one sense, Pharaoh is just a microcosm of all of us, that even in the face of incredible mercy, and even being an eyewitness to the glory of God, he did not fall on his knees to receive the things of God, but continued in his rebellion.  If that doesn’t describe the human race to a tee, I don’t know what does.  Anyway, God then, in dealing with Pharaoh, was dealing with an unregenerate sinner who was dead in his trespasses and sin and was already an enemy of God and a God-hater, and would continue to be so unless God sovereignly removed his stony heart and gave him a heart of flesh.  The means that God used to hardened Pharaoh’s heart was not evil, but a manifestation of His divine omnipotence, sovereignty, grace, and mercy.  With God being so glorified, what could one who hates God do?  Unless God intervened with His Spirit and grace, Pharaoh, and any other person for that matter, would only grow to hate God even more.  The message of the cross is an offence to those who are perishing, and Christ and Him crucified is a stumbling block and foolishness to the natural man.  It will always be that way to us, unless God removes our heart of stone, and gives us a heart of flesh. 

 

Also, it should not be lost that God’s Word always accomplishes what He sends it out to do; it never returns to Him void.  But, that would not be the case if God’s purpose was to always save every single person to whom He brings His Gospel, because many reject that message.  If many reject the message, and God’s purpose was to save them through it, then His Word has indeed returned unto Him void.  Instead, we discover that God’s Gospel is designed specifically to save the elect, and it is to the elect that God’s Word becomes the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works to bring about saving faith, etc.  In terms of the reprobate, the Gospel serves as a testimony against them and their sinful hearts.  Thus, God’s Word always accomplishes its purpose, and never returns unto Him void.  In the one (the elect), His Word is seed, and the Holy Spirit works through it to bring His people to Himself, which work, by the way, He never fails to do.  In others (the non-elect), His Word is a testimony against them and their sinfulness. 

 

Lastly, with regard to this point, we still have to deal with the immediate context of Romans 9:16-19.  In that passage, the whole point is that God is sovereign in His bestowing of His mercy, and that bestowment is not done with a view to anything in man (cf 9:11), and that He is also sovereign in His raising up and hardening of people (9:17-18).  This is the reason why Paul anticipates the objection “why does He still find fault?  For who has resisted His will?”  If the Scriptures taught a synergistic view of salvation, this question would never have been asked!  Synergism sets just fine with natural man.  But this that Paul is speaking of places everything in the hands of God.  The natural man has always hated that. 

 

But let’s, as you say, hear the inspired apostle speak:  “16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth."   18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?" 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?”  (Rom 9:16-21) Where synergism is in all of that, I have absolutely no idea.  Both the immediate context of the passage, and the background (Exodus) refute your view.  Again, with all due respect, it is simply impossible, Bill, to hold to the view you are espousing if we are to take the Scriptures seriously. Maybe you can, but I certainly cannot. 

 

Yes, God pours out His mercy and grace in the person of His Son Jesus Christ even on Pharaoh.  

 

Really?  That is quite a recasting of the atonement, and would make God both unjust, and unwise.  God would be unjust, because Jesus would have made an actual atonement for Pharaoh, whereby Divine justice was completely satisfied, yet, Pharaoh would still be forced to pay the penalty for his sins.  God would be unwise, for He sent Jesus to die for someone whom He already knew was in hell.  If the entire purpose of Jesus’ atonement was to actually save sinners, then how could Jesus’ atonement have any relevance at all for those whom God knows will not be saved?  You also blur the distinction between the mercy that results in salvation, and the mercy whereby God sends rain on the just and the unjust (what we call “common grace.”). 

 

Whoso ever will may receive or reject His mercy and grace. Yes, and who is it that ever “wills?”  The only thing that those of Adams stock “will” is the rejection of His mercy and grace.  Only those who have been made willing ever “will” to receive His mercy and grace.  All those, and only those, given to Jesus by the Father will come. 

 

Also, please read why God makes one vessel for honor and another dishonor in Jeremiah the other background passage for Romans.  Jeremiah 18:6-10.  That passage in Jeremiah looks like synergy to me.  God is the one who is said to do with clay as He sees fit, to raise up one nation, and to bring another down.  That does not relieve our responsibility to comply with what God commands.  However, what the passage in Jeremiah teaches us is that no one is able to comply perfectly with God’s stipulations.  This is brought out later in the passage (verses 13 and following).  This is precisely why God states later in Jeremiah that He will make a new covenant whereby He will put His Law in our minds and write it on our hearts, and He will be our God, and we His people, and all of God’s people shall know Him, and He will forgive their iniquities.  This is not synergism, but monergism.  Even the prophet Jeremiah himself is a testimony to the sovereignty of God for in 1:5 we read that God “knew” Jeremiah before God formed him in the womb, and before he was even born he was separated and ordained to be a prophet to the nations.  Where was Jeremiah’s “free will” in all of that?

 

Also, if you take the time to fully understand the Calvinistic position, you will discover that we do not deny that people make choices that are said to be “free.”  As a matter of fact, it is only in the Calvinistic (Biblical) understanding of the will that any choice can truly be said to be free, because we maintain that choices are made in accordance with our nature.  In other words, we all get precisely what we want.  You can read the article I wrote linked above in regards to that, or any or all of the articles at this link:  http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/topic/freewill.html

Monergy is a human, fallible, erroneous, vain term to describe the working of God.  The Biblical term is synergy.  Please get out your Greek Bible and look up monergy, it isn’t there. Now look up synergy and you will discover the working of God.

            -- 1.  You are confusing categories.  We are not talking about what words are found in the Bible, but what the Bible teaches.  2.  Your use of synergy is incorrect from the very start, because you make it mean precisely what we mean by monergism by saying that synergy is “the working of God.”  Here you have posited only one working power:  God.  That is monergism.  Synergism is two powers working simultaneously together to bring about a desired effect.  I have already provided numerous texts that clearly show that salvation is monergistic.  Until those are overturned, salvation is still all of God, all of grace, and all owing to the power of God alone.  When I stand before the throne of God, I will be ascribing every ounce of salvation to the amazing grace and power of God.  I could never do that if I were a synergist.

 

A frequent mistake of Calvinists is to construct a straw man to do combat with.  Either man has infinite freewill or he has no freewill so the Calvinist argument goes.  This is a false dichotomy

-- This is not how the argument goes, and if you would read carefully what Reformed folks are saying, you would know that.   We attempt to discover what the totality of the Bible teaches with regard to the nature of God and man, and put all of the information together in a coherent whole to ensure that we are not causing the Bible to be one volume of contradictory non-sense.

 

In terms of man’s will, no Calvinist that I am aware of denies that man has a will, and that his will is free in some sense.  What we maintain is that man’s will is free in the most fundamental way that it could ever be:  he is free to do whatever he wants to do; i.e., he is free to act in accordance with his nature and to choose the strongest desires he has at any given moment.  The problem is that man is a sinner by nature, and as such man is a slave of sin.  The only desires he has are those that are opposed to the ultimate spiritual good, namely, coming to Christ.  He must first be liberated and given new desires before he will ever make a free choice for Christ.  And, this is precisely what the Lord does for us:  He makes us willing in the day of His power (Psalm 110:3).  He make us alive who were dead in trespasses and sin (Eph 2:1).  He puts a new heart in us and causes us to walk according to His statutes (Ezek 36:38). 

 

I find it also a bit ironic that you accuse the Calvinist of constructing straw men.  Your responses have been one straw man after another (everything from the charge of Manichaeism to casting dispersion on some of the acts of the Reformers that we 21st century morally “sophisticated” types find to be reprehensible today.  Those things are brought out merely to divert attention away from the real issues; this is pure straw man methodology on your part.  The logical fallacies inherent in that kind of argumentation are classic, not to mention many in number (which I outlined in my previous e-mail).  Not only do you engage in that sort of argumentation, but you then completely misrepresent what Calvinists teach.  It seems to me, Bill, that for whatever reason, you have quite an antagonism against Calvinism, and it has blinded you to what we are trying say, and it has you rendered you incapable of dealing fairly with the issues.  It’s quite alright with me if you disagree with the Reformed view, but please don’t misrepresent what we believe, and please try to at least attempt to engage with the substance of the issues.  Anyway, your entire understanding of what Calvinists teach with regard to the will of man is simply in error. And the kicker is, you chide the Calvinist for making qualifications on the will of man, yet, you yourself also make qualifications on freewill!  It seems it is ok for you to do that, but when Calvinists do it, they are heretics.  Go figure.

 

I don’t have infinite freewill, but I have more degrees of freedom than someone in a wheel chair, a hospital bed, or a prison or who is a addicted to drugs or to pornography or gambling. 

-- Case in point:  you now are qualifying freewill because you understand that there are limitations.  How is this different from what the Calvinist says?  We say that there are limitations, and the limitation is that we can only make choices in accordance with our nature.  We make choices according to the strongest desire at the moment.  And thus, we say that people always get precisely what they want, and this is the essence of freewill. 

 

You then confuse freewill with natural ability…the issue is not about the difference between a person who can walk, and one in wheel chair, etc.  We are talking about the moral ability of man to obey the command to repent and receive Christ.  Every person, regardless of whether they are in a wheel chair, hospital bed, or prison, etc., is in the same spiritual condition:  dead in trespasses and sin, and unless they are made alive by the Spirit of God, they will never come to Christ (John 1:12-13; 3:3; 6:37-44; Eph 2:1).  The confusion in your analogy demonstrates, to me anyway, that you simply have not studied the issues thoroughly or carefully enough.

 

However, everyone has the freedom as spiritual beings created in the image of God to synergistically yield to God’s grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of Grace. 

 

-- There are many things that can be said.  Many Calvinists make a distinction between natural and moral ability.  Man, because he is a rational, thinking creature, certainly has the natural ability to understand what is being said.  The problem is that he is a sinner, and as such he is, as Jesus said, a slave to sin.  Because of this, he is unable to “synergistically yield to God’s grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of Grace.”  As you say, let the inspired apostle speak:  “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”  (1 Cor 2:14).  And again, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.” (Rom 8:6-8), and again, “10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” (Rom 3:10-12), and again, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,” (Eph 2:1). 

 

You say that everyone has the freedom as spiritual beings to “synergistically” yield to God’s grace.  I suppose we are just as “free” to “synergistically” work with a cable in pulling the Empire State Building in NY out of ground.  The question is, do we really have the power to do so.  The answer is no. 

 

One final point here…I see Jesus saying “All that the Father gives will to come to Me…” however, I do not see one verse anywhere in Scripture that even remotely resembles telling unbelievers to “synergistically yield to God’s grace.” 

 

They also have the “freewill” to resist and reject the Spirit of Grace.  You do it every day when you sin.

 

-- The only thing an unregenerate sinner can freely do is sin.  No one can come to Jesus by the power of their own unregenerate will.  The only thing they can freely choose outside of regeneration is rejection of Christ and His grace.  The problem that we have prior to regeneration is that we are in bondage to ourselves.  It is God, and God alone, without the help of anyone, who sets us free.  To even suggest that salvation is a synergistic work, where it is both God and man who work to accomplish it, is completely fallacious, and robs God of all of the glory that is due to Him for our salvation.  It is, in effect, to make yourself, at the very least, a co-savior with Christ.  That is simply an inescapable conclusion derived from your position, which, by the way, is the same position of Rome, the Mormon Church, and every other false religion in the world.  As one who has been graciously regenerated solely by God’s grace and Spirit working powerfully and effectively in my life, I will forever ascribe all of the glory to God alone for my salvation. 

 

As for me still sinning everyday, and resisting and rejecting the “Spirit of Grace,” this is quite true.  However, this is in the context of me having already been born again by the Spirit.  As a believer, I have been empowered by God’s grace to live the “Christian life,” and God has established certain means to effect my spiritual growth (such as prayer, His Word, the sacraments, fellowship, ministry, etc.).  I must make right use of the means of grace in order to grow, and I must be proactive in pursuit of holiness.  However, even in all of that (which is actually the process of sanctification), it is still God who must empower me and ultimately cause me to first of all make right use of the means of grace He has established, and secondly cause me to grow more and more into the image of Christ.  As the apostle Paul stated in Phl 2:12-13:  “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.”  So, ultimately, even sanctification is a monergistic work on the part of God.  I am commanded to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, and to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.  I must pursue godliness.  However, all of this is done on my part by resting upon the finished work of Christ alone, and realizing that the only reason I ever make right use of the means of grace and grow, and produce fruit, is because God has and is working in me both to will and to do His good pleasure.  As I have asked before, so I will ask again:  where is synergism there, Bill?  If it is God who is working for me to even “will”, what does that say for “synergism,” even as it relates to sanctification?  Answer: it kind of destroys it.  Maybe you will never come to agree that the Reformed position is correct, but can you at least see now why some might hold to it?  We are not going into this thing blindly, Bill.  There is an abundance of Scriptural support for what we are saying (I haven’t even dealt with every passage that I could have, but, if you would like me to, I have no problem doing that as well.).

I believe that there is a fatal logical flaw in the predestinationism of Manicheans/ Augustine/Calvin and many Godly people have rejected this teaching. 

-- It is quite a distortion and misrepresentation to lump the Manicheans with Augustine and Calvin.  It is true that Augustine embraced Manichean teaching prior to his conversion. But to then imply that he simply imported his thoughts on doctrine from the Manicheans is in deep error (with that in mind, I’m sure you aware that Augustine was an opponent of Manichean teaching and wrote strongly against it—see his debate with Faustus as one example). 

 

Ever since Augustine, western Christianity has been influenced by Manichean theology. Read the Christian theologians prior to Augustine.  All of them believed that we humans have freewill choice as a gift of God because we are created in His image. Yes, Augustine and his disciple Calvin were Gnostics.

 

        -- Forgive me Bill, but to classify Calvin and others as Gnostic is truly incredible.  I could spend an awful lot of time providing one quote after another that would demonstrate that your accusations against both Augustine and Calvin are not correct, but I’m starting to get the feeling that it wouldn’t matter. You seem fixated on this line of argumentation, and it would seem that no amount of proof that demonstrates otherwise would suffice. 

 

Not only that, but you seem to think that I believe the things that I do merely because Augustine or Calvin taught them, as if I were holding them up as the sole infallible rule for faith and practice.  I can assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.  As I state elsewhere, I embraced the doctrines of grace not because Calvin taught them (as a matter of fact, I had never even read Calvin prior to that point), but because I became convinced that God was indeed all-powerful and all-knowing, and that nothing could ultimately thwart His plans and purposes (which you yourself ironically acknowledge), and that I am absolutely helpless in my estate to make even the smallest move to effect my salvation, but am wholly dependent upon the grace of God for everything, to include my ability to receive Christ.  I became convinced that Christ did not merely make salvation possible, but that He actually saved people at the cross.  His perfect work of atonement was one that could not fail to secure the salvation of everyone for whom it was intended (His sheep; see John 10).  You can read more about why I’m “Calvinist” here:  http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/whycalvinist.  If you want to believe that God cannot accomplish His purposes unless we let him, and that Christ merely made salvation possible, and not actual, and if you want to ascribe even the smallest part of your salvation to some inherent power within you, that’ all on you.  I am exalting God and His power, and ascribing every bit of my salvation to the sovereign grace of God alone, and to Him alone be all (not most, or some) of the glory.  In a nutshell Bill, that is the decision we have to make. 

 

 Be that as it may, and even though you are far more fixated on Calvin and Augustine than I have ever been, let me try to demonstrate how this charge of Gnosticism and Manichaeism could just as easily be leveled against non-Reformed folks:

 

Henry Chadwick, a Regius Professor Emeritus of Divinity at the University of Cambridge wrote a small but highly regarded book called “Augustine:  A Very Short Introduction.” In it, he deals a good bit with the Manicheans.  Here are some things to take note of:

 

1.  “Manichaeism expressed in poetic form is a revulsion from the material world and became the rational for an ultra-ascetic morality.” (p. 12).  What is different here with what is found in most non-Reformed fundamentalist, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox communities?  It was the Reformers who restored the church the whole concept that matter is not inherently, and that all of God’s creation, as He created, is good.  The impact that Reformed theology had on the thought of man can be seen in the art that produced from that time period.  Reformed theology deals with the world as it really is:  though fallen, it is nevertheless beautiful, and all of creation declares the glory of God.  People are to be respected as those who are indeed created in God’s image, and though that image has been marred, he still retains that image.  The art produced prior to the Reformation represented a distorted view of the world.  Post Reformation art shows the world as it is, plants, trees, people actually look like people, etc. Those of us who are Reformed do not tell our folks to avoid the world, but to embrace it as those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and are not of world, but in it.  Want some wine for dinner?  Drink it.  Want a beer with that piece of Pizza?  Drink it.  Want to listen to a good jazz piece?  Listen to it.   All things are in moderation, of course.  J

2.  “Absolute celibacy was required of…the Elect” (p.12).   I find the exact opposite being taught by the Reformers.  Both Luther and Calvin married.

3. “Mani denied any authority to the Old Testament with its presupposition of the goodness of the material order of things of its Maker.” (p. 13).  Far from denying the Old Testament, Luther, Calvin, and the other Reformers affirmed it, as well as the fact that the original creation of God is good.

4.  “[Mani] generously acknowledged truth in all religious systems, and rejected orthodox catholic Christianity for being too exclusive and negative towards other religious myths.”  I think it is safe to say that the Reformers were anything but “Manichean” here.  As a matter of fact, you would seem to have more in common with Mani here, as evidence by your concern that Calvinists are “myopic” in their view.  But you know what Bill, even though you may have a similar understanding here as Mani did, I will not charge you with being a Manichean.

5.  “The crucifixion [to Mani] was no kind of actuality but a mere symbol…”  This is exactly the view that is held outright by all who do not hold to the vicarious, penal substitutionary view of the atonement, which, by the way, can only logically be held by those who are Reformed.   

6.  “The force of good and evil in the world have strengths and weaknesses such that neither side can vanquish the other.” (p. 13)  This sounds very much like the conception of many non-Reformed Christians.  God is basically on the outside looking in, seemingly pacing the halls of heaven hoping that somehow, someway His plans and purposes would not be thwarted, hoping that somehow these sinful creatures would somehow find it in the goodness of their heart to “accept” Him. 

7.  “Little fragments of God, or Soul, have become scattered throughout the world in all living things, including animals and plants.” (p. 13)  Except for the animals and plants part, this sounds very similar in many respects to what the Greek church fathers and modern day Eastern orthodoxy teaches.

8.  “…supreme and infallible teaching office was located for his [Mani’s] community not in Jesus nor in the old Jewish books but in Mani himself.”  This is the direct opposite teaching of the Reformers, but is in principle the view of Rome, and the Eastern orthodox.

9.  “Evil was an ineradicable force inherent in the physicality of the material world.  No one could plausibly hold that the ultimate author of so uncomfortable a world could be both omnipotent and truly good.  If the argument was to be coherent, either the omnipotence or the goodness must be sacrificed.” (p. 14).  First, for the Reformed, evil is not an ineradicable force; rather, God has a morally sufficiency reason for evil, and He is causing all things (that would include evil) to work together for the good to those who love and are the called according to His purpose.  By the way, please note the personal pronouns in Romans 8:28 and following. 

10.  “Mani…asserted that the supremely good Light-power was weak and impotent in conflict with the Dark…” (p.15).  This is the exact opposite of what Reformed theology teaches. While Mani teaches God’s weakness and impotence, Reformed theology rejoices in God’s Almighty power.  As a matter of fact, I would argue that Mani’s view is quite close to those who are not Reformed, because non-Reformed folks render God completely powerless unless man lets Him.  God is wholly unable to infringe upon the sovereign will of the creature.  Again, while I see similarities in your view of God and man as that of the Manicheans, I will not brand you as a Manichean.

11.  “The Elect claimed sinless perfection.” (p. 15) Not so in Reformed theology.  Who can forget Luther’s words, “simul ejustus et pecator” (at the same time just and sinner)?  Only those who deny Reformed theology ever embrace this teaching of sinless perfection (Wesleyans, Methodists, and many of your comments, Bill, seem to strongly imply that you also believe in this error).

 

…As for your statement that there is a “major logical flaw” in Augustine and Calvin’s view of predestination and freewill, there is much to say: 

1.  If you are going to equate Augustine and Calvin with Manichaeism, you must substantiate your claims by accurately stating what each one believed and taught concerning predestination and freewill, and then show how they are the same.  If you cannot do that, then you cannot equate them. 

 

See above on Ever since Augustine.  Augustine’s ideas on sex have left a deep mark on our civilization. He, more than anybody else, was responsible for the idea that sex is inherently evil. 

            -- Your comments don’t come anywhere close to doing what I asked.  Let me try it again: 

If you are going to equate Augustine and Calvin with Manichaeism, you must substantiate your claims by accurately stating what each one believed and taught concerning predestination and freewill, and then show how they are the same.  If you cannot do that, then you cannot equate them.  Please document for me, Bill, precisely what Mani taught with regard to predestination and freewill, and then show how that is a one-for-one correspondence with the views of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc, and then please demonstrate how Augustine and the others drew specifically from Mani in order to formulate their teachings.  You have not interacted at all with what Reformed theology teaches about freewill, and you have yet to provide one direct quotation from Mani himself that would verify your claims.  You just keep making accusations, all without offering any evidence.  For the record, I have read some Manichean writings in an effort to see if in fact there is some correspondence.  I have not found a correspondence, but only things that are contrary to what the Reformers taught. 

 

As for Augustine’s view of sex…who cares?  How does that figure at all in the discussion?  It is just one more piece of evidence, Bill, that you just keep reaching for things to besmirch those you disagree with instead of dealing with the substance of what they taught.  But, since you brought up his views on sex, first, as seems to be usual, you completely ignore the historical context in which Augustine lived and the struggles that everyone had with regard to issues of sex in his day.  Stop reading your 21st sensibilities back into history and condemning people for things they did or did not do on the basis of the benefit you have had of living in the time frame you do when we have learned much more than those who lived back then knew. 

 

Secondly, Augustine did not believe that sex was inherently evil, but, as Chadwicke notes in his book, “feared sexuality (not least in himself) as passing easily out of rational control.” (p.94).  One could hardly blame him, given some of the antics of those who engaged in open sexual activity in his day.  He argued against the narrow and misguided claims of Julian.  As Chadwicke again notes, “He did not accept the Gnostic view that Adam and Eve fell by having sexual union before the proper time.”  He then went on to write “On the Good Marriage” where he encouraged that Christian marriage must not be disparaged, and insisted that in Christian marriage the carnal impulse (sex) is put to a “good and right use.”  Yeah, that Augustine sure did blow it with regard to sex!  Now, does this mean that I accept all that Augustine believed with regard to sex?  No, not at all.  However, I am able to put his perspective into its proper historical context; something you seem to be unwilling to do.  In the final analysis, this is just another straw man you have advanced to diver attention from the real issue.  The issues are not about Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, who persecuted who, who had the right view of sex, and who did not, but it is about Scripture, and what God has said. 

     

That is Manichean Gnosticism.  Where did he get those ideas about sex… not from the Bible.  Augustine was a Manichean Gnostic and Ambrose was a Valentinian Gnostic before turning to Roman Catholicism.  Ambrose taught Augustine to ignore the passages of scripture that offended his NeoPlatonic theology.  Where did Augustine get his ideas…Gnosticism. 

            -- I’ve basically already addressed this.  Augustine was not a Gnostic, and to suggest so is just inaccurate.  Let’s do this Bill:  let’s stick with Jesus and Paul, etc.  Now, can you please provide me a clear exegesis of such passages as John 1:12-13, 6:37-44, 63-65; 10:14-30, Eph 1, Rom 8:28-34; etc., that clearly proves your position, and can answer the Reformed exegesis of those passages?

 

Augustine earlier theological writings attribute freewill to man and teaches salvation as synergy just as all of the earlier Christian theologians.  Once Augustine became a Roman Catholic Bishop he gradually removed his mask and taught Manichean Gnosticism as Christianity.  Take a look at the following ideas they can be traced to Manicheanism:

·        Total Depravity

·        Irresistible Grace

Do these look familiar?  I thought so.  Now try to find them in scripture.  I thought so.  That’s why Calvinists quote around scripture and then quote TULIP as if it were scripture. 

            --  Can you cite the precise place in the Manichean literature where “TULIP” is taught, and then demonstrate how that understanding is the exact same thing as the understanding rendered by Calvinists? 

 

For the life of me Bill, I’m not quite sure why you keep banging away at this drum.  I’m trying to get to Scripture.  I provided numerous texts in the article I wrote as well as in my first e-mail to you, all for naught.  You left the majority of those things untouched.  I am more than willing to just go right to Scripture, but you keep running to what amounts to conspiracy theories and guilt by association tactics.  The logical fallacies that I stated to you with regard to this equating of Manichaeism with Augustine and Calvin still stands, because as noted previously, you simply have not offered any substantive parallels.  You must show a clear one-for-one correspondence, on the issues at hand (God’s nature/man’s nature) for your arguments to be valid.

 

2.  Your equating Manichaeism with the teaching of Augustine and Calvin contains a number of logical fallacies…

             

 

Since Manichean and NeoPlatonic theology is the foundation of Augustinian theology, I logically conclude that Augustine got his theological innovations from Manichean and NeoPlatonic theology.  He dressed it up as pious Christianity…but it was Gnosticism all the same. That wasn’t hard. 

-- I hear lots of accusations, but have seen nothing in terms of what the Manichaens actually taught, and what Augustine actually taught.  You haven’t quoted one source, you’re just making accusations. 

 

I also find it extremely disingenuous on your part to keep making the charge, while completely ignoring the fact that Augustine wrote clearly against the Manicheans.  While you may think that Augustine was a Manichean, the Manicheans certainly did not think that he was. But, let me just to cut to the chase on this one…I do not deny that Augustine was a Platonist.  I do not deny that there were things that Augustine said that were not biblical.  But, my concern is not with Augustine.  My concern is the same as yours: with the testimony of Scripture.  So, while I may disagree with your assertion that Augustine, Calvin, et al, were Gnostics, the bottom line is that Augustine and Calvin are not the thing that is in view.  The Scriptures are.  Just deal with the texts, Bill. (!).  The logical fallacies cited in my former response are all still apparent in your response.

 

3.  As for your assertion that Augustine and Calvin’s view has a major logical flaw: 

A.  Where precisely is the major logical flaw?  In order to determine this, you

must interact with what they taught regarding these things, demonstrate where the exegesis of the Biblical text from where their position is drawn is incorrect, and then provided a Biblical exposition that both demonstrates your view, and also disproves theirs. 

 

Augustine and Calvin taught and practiced persecution of their opponents as a divine right.  Didn’t you know that?  Now are you trying to tell me that you believe that it is your God given mission is to persecute, imprison, torture, and execute your theological opponents? Your theological forefathers did.

            -- First, you merely dodged my comments above by resorting to what seems to be a common thing:  when encouraged to interact with what is taught regarding these things and demonstrate where their exegesis of the Biblical text in incorrect, and then provide your response based purely on an exposition of the texts that proves your point and disproves theirs, you resort to mere rock throwing.  It’s like you’re saying, “yeah, whatever…hey, did you know that those guys had serious moral flaws…” as if that answered their exegesis. 

 

Secondly, my “theological forefather’s” are found in Scripture.  It just so happens that Calvin and the others clearly and masterfully articulated what the Scriptures so clearly teach with regard to the issue of God’s attributes, the deadness of man in sin, the necessity and effectiveness of grace, and the absolute sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross.

 

Third, am I going to follow what they did in terms of how they reacted to their theological opponents? No. Again, I have the benefit of living in a completely different cultural and historical context than they did.    

 

Fourth, I do not agree with every jot and title of what any great theologian, past or present, has stated, and I certainly do not condone anyone’s wrong doing.  But, I am able to separate the moral failings of people from what their understanding of Scripture is. 

 

Fifth, as for their moral failings, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

 

 

B.  The only evidence you give that they have a major logical flaw is because

 “many godly people have rejected this teaching.”    This is spurious argumentation for a number of reasons:

 

Many godly Christians have rejected persecution as a means of conversion.  I hope you will join them in a declaration condemning persecution, imprisonment, torture, and execution, and condemn and repudiate those vicious criminals.

            -- uh huh.  And this addresses the issue of the passages I cited precisely how???

 

 

            1)  The determining factor of whether something is true or not is not

whether or not “many godly” people accept it as true.  The sole infallible rule for faith and practice is the Word of God, not the beliefs of fallible men and women. 

            2)  This is a sword you may want to think twice about wielding, for it cuts

far more sharply against those who oppose Augustine and Calvin’s view, for many godly people have embraced these teachings. It was these teachings that launched the Reformation, and made it possible for you and I to do what most take for granted today:  read the Bible in our own language.  Were it not for people that held to the view of God’ absolutely sovereignty and grace espoused by Augustine, Wycliffe, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Tyndale, etc., suffice to say, we would still be attempting to read the Bible in Latin (and in point of fact, we would not be permitted to even do that much, because the Roman Church forbade the “common man” from reading Scripture).

 

Once the persecuted Reformed Protestants gained political power they persecuted their opponents.  Luther sanctioned the persecution and murder of peasants, Jews, and Anabaptists.  Zwingli persecuted his opponents and Luther condemned Zwingli to hell for his theology. The loving brotherhood of Protestant Reformers is only a myth.  The persecuted English Puritan, once they came to America to escape persecution, they then persecuted their opponents.  I would never join my hand to the bloody hand of persecutors because they have shed innocent blood.  The unrepentant murderer’s place is the lake of fire.

 

            -- And just what Christian community from those times is there that is completely innocent of persecuting their theological enemies?  But, that really isn’t even the point Bill.  The point is you are not joining hands with those people; you would simply be bowing to what Scripture teaches with regard to the issues I thought that we were suppose to discuss.  As the saying goes, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Were the Reformers perfect?  No, and it is sad to see some of the things that transpired.  But again, you must stop wrenching what happened out of its historical context.  One of the things we can learn from what happened is that there will be trouble when there is an established theocracy, or one sect tries to impose its beliefs upon the masses.  Also, in terms of perspective, you do realize that one can only be convicted of murder if they engage in the unlawful taking of ones life. (?).  Again, this gets back to your complete lack of historical perspective. 

 

3)  In line with the previous point, if I were to list the people from church

history who held to the Augustinian view, suffice to say it would be littered with the names of those who have come to be known as the giants of the Christian faith. 

 

Only in the west and only after Augustine.  What happened to the opponents of Augustine?  They were arrested, tortured, and executed.  And Augustine sanctioned it...And that’s where Calvin got his ideas of arresting, torturing, and executing his enemies.  By their fruits you shall know them.  The root of Manichean Gnosticism, the trunk of Augustinianism, and the fruit of Calvinism.  Augustinianism did not win western Europe by persuasion.  Augustinianism won the west by persecution.

 

            -- I believe that your comments leave much to be desired in terms of historical accuracy and perspective.  How about citing the precise reference and page numbers where you are drawing your information.  Also, as I stated above, I will state again:   in terms of perspective, you do realize that one can only be convicted of murder if they engage in the unlawful taking of ones life. (?)  Again, this gets back to your complete lack of historical perspective. 

 

Second, just precisely how does this relate to any other passage I cited in my article and my last response to you?  Answer:  it doesn’t.  Question for you Bill:  With reference to just John 6:37, does every single person come to Jesus?  Who is it that comes to Jesus?  Why is it that they come to Jesus?  I would be very interested to hear a response from a synergistic view that is faithful to the text.

 

Thirdly, even if I conceded what your points here (and I don’t), again, so what?  Where does that leave the volume Scriptural texts that still have to be dealt with?  It leaves them, in your case, untouched.  Again, there is only one person who has kept focusing on Augustine and Calvin, and that is you. 

 

The names on the side that opposed this view, however, would be filled with the names of those who, let’s just say in the interest of Christian charity, were not quite as theologically astute as the others.  As a matter of fact, the list would be contain a number of heretics: Pelagius, Socinus, Finney, and the entire modern-day movement of Word of Faith teachers, not to mention that it has historically been the catalyst that launched theological liberalism in all of its forms.

 

How about all of the Christian martyrs and theologian prior to Augustine.  You need to do a study of the early history of Christianity.

            -- What about them?  They taught many good things.  They also taught some things that were problematic.  I’m not like you though Bill, where I feel the need to demonize those who do not subscribe to my theology. 

 

Quite interestingly the Word Faith movement got much of its theology of Christ suffering in hell from the works of Calvin.  Christ victory is the cross; He never suffered in hell.  He suffered in the flesh on the cross. 

 

            -- Don’t blame Calvin for others who cannot read his words in context and then might use them to formulate doctrines that he would have been horrified at.  As for Christ’s victory being the cross, what does that mean Bill?  Or, let me simply ask this:  Did Jesus actually save anyone at the cross?  Was there something left undone by His work on the cross?  Did Jesus make a perfect atonement, or merely a potential atonement that is made only made effective by the freewill of men?   For Calvin, Christ endured hell on the cross, and on the cross He made a full, perfect, substitutionary work of atonement whereby He actually saved His people (and didn’t just make salvation possible as heretics might say).  Here is real victory:  every person for whom Christ died will, not might, be saved, because Jesus, and not those for whom He died, is the only perfect, all powerful savior.  The Calvinist says unapologetically that Jesus saves…and he really believes it.  Unfortunately, and quite ironically, it is the non-Calvinist that denies these things, and in effect makes Christ work ineffective.  Whereas the Calvinist can say “Jesus Saves!” and really mean it, the most the non-Calvinist can say is “Jesus Tries To Save,” or more precisely “Jesus Tries to Help Us Save Ourselves.”

 

C.  What is the fatal logical flaw?  Either God is absolutely sovereign, or He isn’t.

 

Did the “absolute sovereign” force you to love Him? 

            -- First to answer your question, no, He graciously gave me ability to do so.  Second, how about just answering the question posed to you?

 

That’s called rape. 

            -- That is not rape, because a rapist is not concerned with love, but with violently offending a person to merely fulfill his lusts.  Again, another straw man.  How about getting back to the texts Bill?

 

God is not a rapist.

            -- Quite right Bill.  It’s a shame you have to keep resorting to such childish tactics because you simply refuse to interact in any meaningful way with what Reformed folks are saying with regard to our desperate estate before God, and the great lengths He went to in order to secure our salvation.  What you have chosen to label as rape is in actuality the amazing grace of God, whereby makes us spiritually alive by removing our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh, causing us to do His will.  What you have called rape, then Bible calls freeing us. Once again, another straw man, and once again, I would encourage you, Bill, to just read what we are saying. 

 

I hear sovereignty more than love from the Calvinists. 

            -- That’s because you have a bias against Calvinists, Bill, and that bias has manifested itself in less than charitable comments from you.  We are attempting to teach the whole counsel of God, not just little snippets here and there.  And maybe one reason you hear sovereignty more than anything else from Calvinists is because you are evidently interacting with Calvinists concerning things that have a direct bearing on God’s sovereignty.  I can assure you, that if you spent a week at the Reformed churches I’ve been associated with, the theme you would hear again and again is that since God has so manifested His grace to wholly undeserving creatures (us), we are now called and freed to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I simply cannot count the number of times I have been encouraged by these great preachers to “Go now and serve and love your neighbor…”  Again, it is just one more straw man to add to the already high pile.

 

See the sledgehammer.  And again what scripture are you quoting about “absolute sovereign”?  I looked it up “absolute sovereign” in my Bible and I couldn’t find that scripture.  Or is “absolute sovereign” one of those fallible, erroneous, vain human teachings? 

-- Did you look up “Triune” as well?  How about your word “synergistically?”  I can’t seem to find those in my Bible either.  I won’t chide you for that though, because I understand what you are doing:  you are using words that describe what you believe the Bible teaches concerning a particular topic.  If I may offer just a friendly word of advice:  Bill, you are obviously a very bright guy, and you really don’t need to resort to such weak arguments like this.  I personally do not care if a person disagrees with my position and wants to discuss these matters, and I actually welcome that, because these are very important matters indeed.  But, I would really appreciate it if those who disagree with me would not distort what I believe.  I do not want to misrepresent what you, or anyone else believes.  I want to hear what a person believes, why they believe it, and then interact with that.  I want to encourage you to just stop using empty rhetoric.  “God is not a rapist.”  Please Bill, give me a break.  “Calvin is a Gnostic.”  Uh huh.  “I don’t find this “word” in the Bible.”  Ok.  How do any of those comments even begin to address the exegesis of the texts?

 

As for the truth that the Bible teaches that God is indeed absolutely sovereign, I have provided more than ample support for that truth from Scripture.  What is amazing is that you feel compelled to try and deny that simple and fundamental truth. (! )  In non-Reformed theology, it is always something in God that is diminished, sacrificed or expunged, and something in man (i.e., his “freewill”) that is exalted and, in essence, glorified.

 

Either He has exhaustive foreknowledge of the future, or He doesn’t.  The only thing needed to demonstrate that the opposing view of freewill is incorrect is to assert what the Lord Himself asserts:  “For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it? His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” (Isaiah 14:27), and again, “Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man who executes My counsel, from a far country. Indeed I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass. I have purposed it; I will also do it.” (Isa 46:9-11). 

Many, many more passages could be cited.  If you could provide an exegetical response concerning just those 2 passages that is faithful to your idea of “freewill,” I’d be most interested in hearing it.

4.  Finally, just because the Manicheans denied freewill does not mean that they were wrong in denying freewill per se.  In every heretical sect, there are things that can be found that are indeed true.  For example, the Jehovah Witnesses believe that there is one God.  Does this mean that every Christian teacher who affirms that there is but one God is wrong, merely because the Jehovah Witnesses also teach the same thing?  Obviously not. 

 

JWs teach that God is one; the Bible teaches that God is a plural unity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Please don’t put yourself in the same boat as the JWs.  Calvin had theological difficulty with the Trinity of God and this resulted in other Calvinists such as Sir Isaac Newton, John Milton, and John Locke rejecting the full deity of the Son of God.

-- First, it is pretty convenient how just bypassed and ignored the passages I cited in my first response before my statement about the Jehovah Witnesses.  You just went right to the comment about them.  Second, Bill, not only do JWs teach that God is one, so does the Bible and biblical Christianity.  What the Bible teaches is that there is one God who is eternally existent in three distinct persons (what you call a “plural unity.” By the way, I’ve searched the Bible high and low, and cannot find the words “plural unity.”  Alas, I won’t charge you Bill with coming up with vain man-made terms. 

 

As for Calvin having a “problem” with the Trinity, I find that extremely curious, since it was Calvin’s staunch adherence to the Trinity that infuriated Servetus, and which eventually led to Servetus’ demise at the hands of the city council at Geneva (another historical inaccuracy perpetuated by Calvin’s enemies is that Calvin had Servetus put to death.  He did not).  If there were any hint that Calvin had “theological difficulty with the Trinity,” it is quite certain that he would have suffered the same fate that every other person in that era suffered who taught heresy.  Not only that, but Calvin’s Institutes are organized in Trinitarian fashion!  He begins by speaking about the nature of God, the Trinity, etc., and starts with the Father, then moves on to the Son, and finally the Holy Spirit.  As for his precise statements concerning the Trinity, I will refer you simply to the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 13.  Not only are Calvin’s statements concerning the Trinity orthodox, but they are often referred to even today by those who wish to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against those who oppose it. 

 

With reference to Newton, Milton, and Locke, first, I find it a bit of stretch to call them “Calvinists.”  You’ll have to provide the direct source that clearly affirms their Calvinism.  Second, even if they did affirm the so-called 5 points of Calvinism and yet denied the Trinity, they would still not be considered Calvinists, because Calvinists affirm that salvation/redemption is a Trinitarian work.  This is why Calvinists demur having Calvinism reduced to a mere 5 points.  Calvinism is not merely 5 points.  Those 5 points were a response to 5 points of disagreement that the Arminian’s had with the teaching of the Reformed church in the Netherlands (an important historical fact that you seem to want to ignore for whatever reason). 

 

Your whole point then is both fallacious, in that you wrongly assert that Calvin was something less than Trinitarian, and it also is falls into the genetic fallacy logical error (which you have continually made throughout).  Even if I granted that Calvin denied the Trinity, and that the persons you mentioned who also denied the Trinity were “Calvinists,” what are we to make of the thousands of others who have called themselves “Calvinists,” and do adhere to the Trinity?  I could just as easily argue that those who followed Calvin are strong Trinitarians because of Calvin’s influence, not despite Calvin’s influence. 

 

Finally, and yet once again, the whole point you are advancing is just another red herring being advanced to divert attention from the issues.  The fact that Locke and others may have denied then Trinity has absolutely nothing to do with the issues at hand. 

 

 

Now, when we begin to explore more about what Jehovah Witnesses believe about the one true God, as compared with what Christians teach about the one true God, we begin to see vast differences.  This equally applies to the Manichean/Augustine/Calvin comparison that you have advanced.

 

Manicheans believed in:

·        Total Depravity

·        Irresistible Grace

Augustine was a Manichean and he idealized NeoPlatonic Theology.  I’m going to make the logical conclusion that Augustine derived his theology from Manichean and NeoPlatonic Theology.  I don’t think you can deny the link between Augustine and Calvin.


            -- First, I’ve already dealt with this before.  By the way, Calvin did not accept everything Augustine taught, yet another fact that you seem to either not know, or just choose to ignore in an effort to bolster whatever claims you want to make. 

Second, you state that Manicheans believed in TULIP.  Well, as they say in Missouri:  show me.  It’s one thing to make an accusation or assertion, quite another to back it up with clear facts.  Show me the primary sources, and how what the Manicheans taught is precisely the same as Reformed theology teaches, to include demonstrating that the Manicheans understanding of redemption was a Trinitarian concept.

Third, you state:  “Augustine was a Manichean and he idealized NeoPlatonic Theology.”  The word “was” with reference to Augustine’s relationship to Manichaeism is the key word.  He was at one time a Manichean, but then rejected that teaching for Christianity, and then wrote prolifically against Manichean teaching.  Those are the facts.  As for Augustine idealizing Neo Platonic philosophy; guilty as charged. And, again, just how do these things have any bearing on the exegesis of the key texts in question?  They don’t.

Fourth, we come to real heart of everything when you say, “I’m going to make the logical conclusion that Augustine derived his theology from Manichean and NeoPlatonic Theology.” In this one statement, Bill, you more or less acknowledge that you don’t have any hard facts to back up your claims; you are merely basing everything on your own “logical conclusion.”  Given the assertions you’ve made, Bill, logical conclusions fall far short of being sufficient.  If our legal system found people guilty of a crime based on “logical conclusions,” our jails would be far more crowded than they are now.   If I went to my boss with just my “logical conclusions,” I wouldn’t be hired very long.  This is what disappoints me in your response throughout, Bill.  Again, you are obviously a bright guy, yet all of that is undermined by your faulty argumentation.  If you  have to hide behind “logical conclusions,” genetic fallacies, and diversionary tactics, you have lost before even getting started. If you cannot respond to the Biblical case made by Reformed theology, then you really ought to either embrace it, or stop arguing the way you have.  As a matter of fact, that would really only leave 2 options:  accept the Reformed view, or ignore the Bible (and if you do that, how can that be said to be “Christian” in any meaningful sense?).

 

As a student of history you must know that Augustinism/Calvinism only succeeded when Augustinians/Calvinists gained political power to imprison, torture, and execute their enemies...Calvinistic Switzerland, Netherlands, and South Africa, and Cromwell’s England, and Puritan New England.  As soon as Calvinists lose political power, it withers away under the liberating power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

--  1.  I would not agree with your extremely broad brush of history.   2.  Your comments are not quite an accurate representation of history.  3.  At the time of the Reformation?  None; yet, it grew and grew and grew!  What political power did Calvinists have during the First Great Awakening?  How about in England during Spurgeon’s time?  How about today, when so many are coming to embrace the doctrines of grace?  Now, does this mean that Calvinists never had political power, and when they had it that they never abused it?  Of course not.  There were times they had political power and did abuse it.  But, there were also times that they did not abuse it.  As a matter of fact, it was due in part to Calvinistic influence that we enjoy the freedoms we currently enjoy, and it is the Puritan work ethic that is still modus operandi for Americans, and what makes America once of the greatest countries on earth.  But again, we aren’t here to discuss any of those things!  We are here to discuss Romans 3:10-18, 8:28-34; John 6, 10, 12, 17, etc., etc.

 

After the church universal sided with Augustine against Pelagius,

 

Who was the innovator Augustine or Pelagius? Augustine introduced Manicheanism and enforced it with persecution, imprisonment, torture, and execution. 

-- If you wish to side with Pelagius, that’s on you.  Every Christian communion I’m aware of, to include the East, rejects full blown Pelagianism.  And again, can you document for me precisely the accounts of Augustine and his persecution, imprisonment, torture, and execution of people? 

             

What is the church universal?  The Roman Catholic Church? I assume that you think that the Roman Catholic Church of the 4th Century was the universal church. 

-- You would assume incorrectly.  I do not believe the Roman “Catholic” church existed in the 4th century.  I hold to the view that traces the Papacy to around the 6th century.  When I say the church universal, I simply mean it to say that the whole church (East and West) sided with Augustine at the Council of Orange. 

 

The Roman Catholic Church of the 4-12 Centuries was a theological wasteland.  Missionaries from the East had to evangelize western Europe.  Augustine could not read the Greek Bible and quotes the inaccurate Latin version to prove his total depravity of mankind theory. 

-- Incorrect…Augustine could read the Greek Bible, but he was more comfortable with the Latin text.  As for using the “inaccurate” Latin version to prove his total depravity of mankind theory, that is not true either, and it completely ignores the scores of Greek scholars who embrace Reformed theology and are quite adept at demonstrating their view from, of all things…the Greek text.  As for the East evangelizing the West, I have no idea, although we could just as easily say that the Mormons are evangelizing many today.  Does that make Mormonism correct?  No.  Does the Eastern church’s evangelizing mean that they are correct?  No.  Once again, another argument from you that has absolutely nothing to do with the issues at hand.

 

This Latin version gave rise to the belief in western Europe that Adam’s guilt was passed on to his descendents according to the Latin text of Romans 5:12.  Now doesn’t that sound familiar?

            -- And what about the Greek text that those who hold to Reformed theology today are quite adept at reading and translating?  Oh, I know…they are wrong too.  No evidence offered, just the declaration that it is so.

 

The early church knew nothing of Augustine’s theology.  Really?  Do the teachings of Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John qualify as the early church?  If so, then it is clear that they not only knew of Augustine’s theology, but were the “inventors” of it.  But, since I know who you mean when you say the early church, your facts are (again) simply not correct, which I will demonstrate below. 

 

Do a little research into the theology of the early church and you won’t find:

Dr. Michael Horton, in his book “Putting Amazing Back Into Grace” has done precisely that.  Here are some quotes that he provides that directly contradict your assertions (highlights/emphasis in the quotes are mine):

 

·        Total Depravity:  Justin Martyr (AD 150):  “Mankind by Adam fell under death, and the deception of the serpent; we are born sinners…No good thing dwells in us…for neither by nature, nor by human understanding is it possible for men to acquire the knowledge of things so great and so divine, but by the energy of the Divine Spirit…Of yourselves it is impossible to enter the kingdom of God…He has convicted us of the impossibility of our nature to obtain life…Free will has destroyed us; we who were free are become slaves and for our sin sold…Being pressed down by our sins, we cannot move upward toward God; we are like birds who have wings, but are unable to fly.”  (Horton, p. 234-235).  Horton goes on to quote Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius.

 

 

 

 

·        Irresistible Grace:  Irenaeus (AD 180):  “Not of ourselves, but of God, is the blessing of our salvation…Man, who was before led captive, is taken out of the power of the possessor, according to the mercy of God the Father, and restoring it, gives salvation to it by the Word; that is, by Christ; that many may experimentally learn that not of himself, but by the gift of God, he receives immortality.”  (Horton, p. 249).  Horton also quotes, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Arnobius, Anathansius (“To believe is not ours, or in our power, but the Spirit’s who is in us, and abides in us.”), George of Nazianzum (“To will is from God.”), etc.

 

Preservation of the Saints:  Clement of Alexandria (AD 190):  “Such a soul [of a Christian] shall never at any time be separated from God…Faith, I say, is something divine, which cannot be pulled asunder by any other worldly friendship, nor be dissolved by present fear.”  (Horton, p. 252).  Horton also quotes Clement of Rome and others.

 

After these things, Horton then goes on to provide various creedal statements, two of which (The Councils of Orange and Valence) occur prior to the schism between East and West, which both clearly affirm what would later be called “Reformed” teaching.

 

            Alas, however, the early church fathers, and the creeds, etc., are not our final authority. Rather, it is the Word of God that is the sole infallible source for faith and practice, and it is to that which I make my appeal.  I have provided the above merely to demonstrate that your statements are false.

 

 

it wasn’t long before the false gospel of Pelagius crept back into the church, and as a result we were thrust into the Dark Ages and the radical abuses of the Roman Church as the pure Gospel of grace was buried more and more under an avalanche of traditionalism and corruption, until it reached its climax in the 16th century when that false church declared through the mouth of Tetzel, “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs!” 

 

How did we get from Pelagius (who coined the often-quoted phrase “justification by faith alone”; it wasn’t Luther who started that phrase) to purgatory?  Is this a rhetorical devise that you are charging me with? Lets be factual not rhetorical.  Where in Pelagius’s writings did he teach purgatory?  I thought so.  Now where did Augustine get his ideas about purgatory?  Well you guessed it.

-- I was simply trying to provide some historical context as to why the Reformation began.  As for you encouraging me to be “factual, not rhetorical,” I find that extremely interesting given all that has been stated to this point; I mean, where are your facts Bill?  All I have heard, and have had to address, is empty rhetoric and straw men. 

 

It was an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, who having himself discovered what the Bible actually said with regard to the nature of God, man, and the Gospel, reacted and nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg. 

 

 

From my reading the life of Luther, he was a tormented man who suffered from alcoholism and died an alcoholic.  Jesus Christ frees us from the torment and bondage of drug and alcohol addiction.  He doesn’t just cover over our sins like a dunghill covered with snow.  Luther’s or Calvin’s message is not a message of freedom in the Holy Ghost and the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

 

-- Your facts about Luther are incorrect.  He was not an alcoholic, as his enemies would paint him to be.  As for Jesus and the freedom He gives us, this can only be said from a Reformed perspective, because it is only from a Reformed perspective where it is Jesus who actually does any and all of the freeing.  Much more to say in regard to that, but it has all already been stated.  The bottom line is that non-Reformed theology teaches that Jesus is merely a hypothetical savior instead of a real savior; a hypothetical liberator instead of a real liberator; a “possible” deliverer instead of an actual deliverer.  You may not like that, but that is precisely the case.

 

From that time on Martin Luther, as well as those who followed in his train (i.e., Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, etc.) found themselves as marked men.  It was Augustinianism that resulted in the recovering of the Gospel to the church at the Reformation.  Hence, if that which is the purest expression of the Gospel Jesus Christ withers away, then what replaces it is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but is in fact the false gospel of humanistic philosophy dressed up in the garb of Biblical Christianity that exalts man and his “power,” dishonors and robs God of all the glory for His work in our salvation, and produces bondage.  And, it wasn’t long after the Reformation and Calvin that the error of Pelagius once again crept back into the church with the advent of the Remonstrance in the Netherlands. 

 

Luther’s Gospel of Cheap Grace led to a society that the martyr Bonhoffer condemned.

--  What in the world does Bonhoffer have to do with the Scripture texts?  Nothing!  As for cheap grace, let me ask you, what is it that makes grace “cheap?”  Cheapness has to do with worth, and worth is based on any number of factors, e.g., how well does the thing in question work; how important is the thing viewed; how valuable is it to someone, etc.  From the Reformed perspective, God and His grace are everything.  His grace, which is undeserved, is not only necessary for salvation, but God’s grace actually accomplishes what it sets out to do:  save.  God’s grace in salvation was perfectly secured for us by the perfect substitutionary work of atonement by Christ on the cross, and God’s grace is perfectly applied to us by the Holy Spirit.  Hence, God’s grace derives its worth and effectiveness from the nature and work of the Triune God alone. 

 

In non-Reformed theologies, God and His grace are ultimately powerless to do anything unless man lets him.  In the Reformed understanding of grace, grace actually does something: it overcomes our deadness…it saves.  It has real power, and the reason it has power is because it is all based and flows from the perfect work of Christ on the cross. Simply put; no cross, no grace.  In the non-Reformed understanding, grace has no power to save, because salvation ultimately rests with man and his “free will.”  Grace does not rest or flow from the perfect work of Christ.  This view of grace doesn't merely make grace “cheap,” it makes grace utterly worthless, because this grace doesn’t do anything! 

 

Thus, if one view exalts the power of God and His grace, and maintains that God’s grace comes to us purely and effectually by and through the blood of Christ and His Gospel, and that this grace never fails to accomplish its redemptive purpose (because Christ’s blood never fails to save!), but the other view maintains that God’s grace is just something that, while needed, nevertheless does not secure anything, and is itself ineffectual (which, in turn, means that Christ’s blood and work are ineffectual), then what view of grace is “cheap?”  Not only is the non-Reformed view of grace cheap, it is utterly worthless because it is ineffectual, and it does not come to us not through a perfect work of a perfect Redeemer.  The non-Reformed view of grace isn’t even grace, for it looks to something good in man as the basis for its bestowal, which in turn means that man has, in effect, done something to deserve undeserved favor, clearly a contradiction in terms.   

 

If Bonhoffer did object to Luther’s view of grace, he merely objected to Jesus’ view of grace.  Rather than Bonhoffer objecting the Luther’s view of grace, I have a suspicion that he objected to people’s abuse of that grace, whereby some would continue to sin that grace might abound, and turn God’s grace into a license to sin.  I also object to that as well.  But again, what does it matter what Bonhoffer thought anyway?  I could just as easily usher in one scholarly source after another that credits Reformational thought as the basis for much of good that transpired in the past and today.  But, of what value is all of that in trying to render a proper exegesis of 1 Cor 2:14, or Romans chapters 4 and 5, or any other passage?  None.     

 

Luther said that our justification is like a dunghill covered with snow.  Well maybe his was, but my righteousness is Christ and Christ is no dunghill. 

 

-- Again, not quite accurate and a misrepresentation of his view.  You know Bill, I seem to remember something in the Scriptures about bearing false witness…I would encourage you to really be precise with your statements of what you say other’s teach.  Anyway, I found this from a Lutheran website that might be of interest t you:

I was reading the writings of Martin Luther and one time I came across a passage that read basically that our sins would be ‘covered over ‘like snow over a dunghill. ... I have never been able to find this piece since I first read it. Can you tell me where the passage can be located and what writings this could be taken from?   

The Answer:  With regard to the Luther quotation, a check in the indexes of four major editions of Luther’s works does not reveal whether or where Luther might have said or written that. It is certainly in keeping with his understanding of the gospel, although he did have many ways of saying it better.

http://www.wels.net/sab/qa/luther-02.html

The point would be, Bill, that our sin is totally covered by the perfect purity of Christ.  Justification is like a dunghill covered in snow in that we are the dunghill, and Christ’s righteousness is the snow that covers us.  In a winter snow storm, what do you see?  All you see is snow…you do not see what the snow has covered.  This is precisely our estate now before God.  Though we are still sinners (dunghills), God by His grace does not “see” the dunghill (so to speak).  All He “sees” is the “snow” (i.e., the perfect righteousness of Christ that has been imputed to us, which you, of course, deny).  What you fail to grasp, Bill, is that your righteousness, which you are banking on to get you to heaven, is, in the words of Isaiah, filthy rags.  It isn’t just our sin that is a dunghill, it is even our righteousness that is putrid in the sight of God.  This is why we the need the righteousness of another to be credited to us, and this is precisely what Christ does for us.  It’s not that He merely died for us.  It’s that He also lived for us!   

And that brings up the issue of justification (a Latin forensic or law term) v. righteousness.  My righteousness in Christ is not law term justification (not of the law), but is  “ righteous” fellowship with God in Christ Jesus through the Holy Ghost.  My righteousness is faith from beginning to end…faith in Jesus Christ. 

 

-- The difference between your view and mine is simple:  you and what you do are your own righteousness “in Christ,” and for me, Jesus Christ is my righteousness, and I appropriate that righteousness by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in, by, and because of Jesus Christ alone, all to God’s glory alone.  These are things that, based on your own words, you steadfastly deny. 

 

Christ alone is the sole sufficient cause of my salvation, whereas the individual and his righteousness is ultimately the cause of the salvation of all those who would deny the doctrines of grace.  You make yourself and what do your righteousness (the dunghill, if you will), and thus you turn your faith and works into a meritorious works; you are your own savior, Bill.  What need do you have of Jesus?  None.  If you remove the legal issue involved in justification, then you have completely robbed the cross of all of its purpose, for at the cross Jesus is said to have paid the penalty for sinners.  We broke God’s Law, and now Jesus takes our place and bears the penalty that we due to our lawbreaking in our place, and He made a real propitiation for us.  God’s wrath toward those sinners for whom Christ died has been satisfied.  If you deny that, then you deny the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, and are forced in that case to adopt either the moral influence, governmental, ransom to Satan, or some other heretical view.  Talk about a “cheap” view of grace!  Talk about making the work of Christ in vain!  If you want to stand before God and appeal to your works as the cause of your salvation, that’s on you…just please don’t call that the gospel.  I am going to appeal to Christ, and His perfect righteousness which was imputed to me, which I laid hold of by faith, which faith was itself a gracious gift given to me by God, so that it can truly be said that salvation (all of my salvation) is of the Lord.  

 

Your remarks also convey a complete misapprehension, if not ignorance, of the incredible fruit produced by those who held to these principles, and the true nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I will simply refer you to something I wrote with regard to that:  http://www.geocities.com/johnandursula/fruit. 

 

The true nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is freedom in the Holy Ghost and righteous fellowship with the Father and the Son.  What makes you think I don’t know the true nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Because you ascribe the cause of your salvation to yourself and your  free will, and reject the perfection of Christ’s work of atonement on the cross.  Because you deny the full effects of sin upon fallen creatures, and because of that, you not only cheapen grace, but you completely dismantle it and throw it out of the window, all to preserve the omnipotent will of the creature.  Because you deny God’s sovereignty, holiness, and grace, and you make man the determining and ultimate cause of all things, and not God.  Because you deny both the imputation of Adam’s guilt to us, and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to all those who, through grace, believe. 

 

The Gospel is not TULIP.  TULIP is a manmade idea and not the divine revelation.   It appears that you think that the true nature of the Gospel is TULIP.  Search high and low you will never find TULIP in the Bible. I’ve already provided more than enough evidence.  The onus is on you, Bill, to overturn the texts that I have provided. 

 

You’ll have to go the theological works of men to find TULIP.   I went right to the Bible and provided one text after another that clearly taught what is meant by TULIP.  You only attempted to interact with 2 texts that I can tell, and in those texts your exegesis was incorrect.  As for going to the theological works of men, it seems you have done precisely that in your use of such things as “synergistic love” and “triune” and “Trinity” and “God is a plural unity” and so on. And, dependent upon which view of eschatology and ecclesiology you subscribe to, I’m sure there would be even more “words” that are not found in the Bible, but nevertheless are important in terms of describing a concept or truth that is taught in the Bible.  Frankly, I can’t even believe that this is a line of argumentation that I am having to respond to.  

 

Jesus and Him crucified, Jesus Christ is Lord.  Yes, that’s the true nature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And just what does “Jesus and Him crucified, and Jesus is Lord mean, Bill?  Was Jesus crucified merely to make our salvation possible, or to help us save ourselves?  Or, did Jesus die to infallible the secure the salvation of a multitude of sinners that cannot be counted?  Much more could be said, but the bottom line is this:  you say the words “Jesus Christ and Him crucified, Jesus Christ is Lord,” but, you rob them of any real significance by making man and his “free will” the ultimate cause of all things, to include salvation.

 

What is the fruit of TULIP?  The Netherlands (atheistic), Switzerland (atheistic), New England (atheistic and universalistic), South Africa (racist).  Where is the long lasting fruit of TULIP withered… away.   I’ve already dealt with the question.  Anytime you’d like to start dealing with the texts would be great. 

 

It’s not the Calvinists who are preaching a gospel of liberation from the bondage of drug addiction, prostitution, and violence. Go to the prisons, the hospices, and the ghettos.  Where are the Calvinist missionaries? You won’t find the frozen chosen in the gutter reaching the lost. 

--  Glad to see that in your omniscience you seem to know all that we “frozen chosen” do with our lives.  How about this Bill:  try refraining from such inflammatory, not to mention false, comments, and try just dealing the issues at hand.  It would be refreshing to see that.  For now, quickly, it is rather ironic that you make this statement when the father of the modern missions movement, William Carey, was, of all things…Calvinist.  By the way, I have a board in my home that contains the names and information of some of the missionaries that our denomination has planted and supports all over the world (please note, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is just one Reformed denomination.  There are quite a few others, and these all are heavily involved in missions work both oversees and here in our country).  I have been to nursing homes, homeless shelters, prisons, etc., and I know many who continually minister in these venues.  We just do it to the glory of God.  The difference is, we don’t go around bragging about our missionary and outreach work, and the fact that we went to a nursing home, or a prison, etc. (the only reason I even mention it now is to try and set the record straight which you have unfairly (again!) distorted).   We don’t put a guilt trip on people who may not wish to participate in our evangelistic outreach programs, or who do not want to be missionaries, or who do not put money in the plate when we are taking our collection to support our missionaries.  Anyway, your comments are just so contrary to the facts (and,I’m sorry Bill, but mind-numbingly ridiculous), not to mention unfairly judgmental concerning this that I hardly no where to start.  In one swoop you have slandered a multitude of laborers for the Gospel, simply because you are laboring under a stereotypical straw-man that you refuse to be set free from.  I could provide you with tons of facts that would demonstrate just how outrageously incorrect your comments are, but what good would it do Bill?  None. 

 

 

I would also point out that the moral failings of Calvinists, or non-Calvinists, is wholly irrelevant to the issue.  The issue has to do the exposition of Scripture. As for the character of Calvin, I will refer you to the work of noted church historian Philip Schaff (who in his volume actually criticizes Calvinistic teaching) who provides testimony after testimony, from both friend and foe alike, concerning the godly character of Calvin.

 

Calvin and the Swiss Calvinists murdered thousands of innocent Anabaptists by drowning or burning at the stake. 

 

        -- As for the governments that did put those people to death, I do think it is a shameful thing, and it is a dark spot in church history.    However, saying “thousands” of Anabaptists were put to death is a bit of an exaggeration.   

         Again, however, I think your comments are a bit divorced from the cultural and historical context in which cases of such things did occur.  Heresy back then was a capitol offense imposed by the state (it was also a capitol offense in the Bible…are you going to now charge Joshua and Moses as being murderers?).   It is simply unfair to read back into history our 21st century cultural perspective and ideas (such as freedom of religion, which, by the way, the very religious freedoms you and I enjoy are realized because Calvinists came to the America’s to escape religious persecution). Those who knowingly embraced doctrines that were contrary to the established law of the land knew precisely what could have happened to them.  For example, Martin Luther himself fully expected to be put to death for his views.  But he took a stand, and made the declaration that his conscience was held captive to the Word of God, and unless he was convinced by Scripture or plain reason, he would not recant.  Is this not what you hold dear as well, Bill?  The very fact that you and I can state things freely concerning these matters without the fear of the government coming and putting us to death is not despite the Reformers and the Reformation, but in part because of the Reformers and the Reformation.  Luther was not alone in fearing for his life.  If you remember, Calvin also fled France for fear of his life, and history records the persecution and martyrdom of many who were Reformed (see, for 1 example, Foxes Book of Martyrs), a fact that you conveniently overlook. 

 

Now, when I interact with Roman Catholics, I do not argue that because Roman Catholics engaged in the inquisition, or that they had many Reformed people put to death, that the Roman Catholic doctrine concerning salvation, etc., is therefore incorrect.  That is the straw-men of all straw-men.  I reject Roman doctrine concerning salvation, etc., because it is not compatible with Scripture, not because some of the Roman Catholic countries and their governments had people put to death for what they considered heresy.  To look back in history at what we would say are moral failings of mere people, and surmise from that that their system of doctrine is incorrect is another logical fallacy.  It’s the same thing when Muslims critique Christianity, not on the basis of the teaching of Christianity, but because of the horrific acts carried out by the crusaders (and of course, they completely vindicate themselves of any wrong doing). 

 

This leads me back to the Anabaptists.  To call the Anabaptists “innocent” is false on 2 counts.  First, the Anabaptists themselves would never had thought of themselves as “innocent” for having rejected the teaching that they opposed.  They knew full well that they were guilty of breaking the established law.  Second, the Anabaptists were anything but “civil” in making their protests known, and they did much to incense the leaders of the government there.  With reference to the initial protest against Zwinglian teaching, Church historian N.R. Needham notes how Zwingli and others met privately and peacefully with key Radical leaders, but, “Unfortunately the discussions were derailed when some of the Radicals resorted to physically aggressive tactics—noisily disrupting Zwinglian services of worship, vandalizing the baptismal font. (This kind of violence was sometimes not far from the surface in rather too many of the Radicals, and it did untold damage to their cause.).” (2000 Years of Christ’s Power, Part Three:  Renaissance and Reformation, Needham, p. 258).  Yet, Zwingli and others still held open debates with the Radicals.  Of course, given the Radicals “radical” behavior, they did not stand much of chance in being given serious consideration in the debate.  The city of Zurich’s council sided with Zwingli, and, as Needham says, “enacted that those who had refused to bring their children for baptism must do so within eight days on pain of banishment.”  (p.  259).  Please take note of that Bill.  The verdict was not that they should be put to death, but merely that if they did not comply with the decision, they would be forced to leave Zurich.  One way to think of this is to just think of Zurich (and Geneva, and Rome, and every other city at that time for that matter), as just extensions of the church.  Church and state were married.  If I came to your church, Bill, and began to preach the doctrines of grace, no doubt you all would ask me to leave.   But, what if I didn’t abide by your “ruling” and I kept disrupting your church services preaching the doctrines of grace?  I have no doubt that I would be escorted to the doors.  Now imagine that your whole city, Bill, was basically considered the “church,” and they took the doctrines of your church and made them the law of the city, and one of the laws was that they forbade preaching the doctrines of grace.  And not let’s say I already know that preaching the doctrines of grace is against the law in your city, yet I continue to stand on perch in clear view of everyone preaching the doctrines of grace.  What could I expect to happen to me if I disobeyed that law and was apprehended?  I would be banished from your city.  In our country, we put people to death for treason.  What’s the difference with that, than what happened then?  In the final analysis, none, because the actions of the Anabaptists were viewed as treason. Anyway, I hope you see the point here.

 

How did the Anabaptists react to this?  Did “pacifists” act peacefully?  Not quite.  A group of them immediately disobeyed the decisions reached by the city council, and rebaptized each other and celebrated the Lord’s Supper among themselves outside of the established church (state’s!) guidelines.  Neeham remarks, “To Zwingli and the city council, [the actions of the Radicals] were acts of anarchy which struck at the roots of the Zwinglian vision of Zurich as a united Christian community.  Such lawless turmoil could not be tolerated—any more than a Western society would tolerate the idea of a group of its citizens deciding to ignore state law and follow their own self-chosen legal system.”  (p. 259).  How did Zwingli and the council react?  Did they immediately have them all put to death?  Not hardly!  Did they actually impose the banishment that the law actually required?  Not immediately.  They arrested a large number of them, and once again engaged in private discussions with them.  Of course, the discussions were fruitless as the Radicals asserted their beliefs.  Needham reports, “Mantz was fined, Blaurock was banished, and Grebel and Roubli departed the city voluntarily after being given stern warning never to disturb the good Christian order of Zurich by their revolutionary fanaticism.”  (p. 260).  Despite this, however, Radicals that were still in Zurich continued to ignore that state’s laws.  As Needham notes, “it [the Radicals ideology] continued to manifest itself in highly unfortunate and bizarre ways.  One notable occasion, a procession of Radicals marched through the streets of the city, waving willow branches, chanting, “Woe unto thee, Zurich!” and denouncing Zwingli as none other than the Great Red Dragon of the book of Revelation.”  (p. 261).  Finally, the council’s patience with the Radicals was expended, and they decreed that anyone who rebaptized another was to be put to death by drowning.  Of course, Radicals continued their practices, fully aware of the consequences, and, sadly, some were put to death.    

 

Anabaptists were just as equally intolerant of those who differed with them.  I have already mentioned how they disrupted services, among other things.  Needham goes on to say with regard to the Anabaptists:  “Anabaptists may have advocated religious toleration in society at large…but they tended to be extremely intolerant of what they considered moral lapses among their own.  Many of the most wounding internal divisions of the Anabaptists were over the extent and severity of the ban.” (p. 267). 

 

Now, please do not infer from all of this that I condone what was done to the Anabaptists, which was done in response to their actions.    I do not, and every time I read about it, I am deeply saddened.  However, I cannot adopt a holier than thou mentality and judge the city council of Zurich of the 16th century according to my cultural perspective and the hind-sight that I have.  I must recognize that they were sinners, just like me, and if we’re all honest, most of us would have engaged in the same kind of things that those otherwise godly people did.   Again, what the Anabaptists did was essentially commit treason, and they did so knowingly and with the full knowledge of the consequences. 

 

 

Where do murderers go when they die?

-- The same place that those who bear false testimony, Bill. The same place that those who do not love God with all of their heart, mind and strength, Bill, or love their neighbor as themselves, Bill, or keep the law of God perfectly, Bill.   By the way, it is not the mere outward act of the unlawful taking of a life that is a sin, but also the heart of the issue, as Jesus pointed out.  Have you, Bill, ever been guilty of harboring evil thoughts toward one you have been called to love?  Have you, Bill, ever lusted after a woman in your heart?  Have you ever not done something you knew you should have done?  Have you Bill, in any 1 single second of your life, perfectly loved God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, or perfectly loved your neighbor as yourself?  If you wish to pass judgment on those whom you never knew personally, and who lived under wholly different circumstances than you, and pass judgment on the state of their soul, then you are walking on shaky ground indeed.  I for one do not know how I would have reacted to my “religious” enemies if I had lived back then, when those who opposed the orthodox position of then church were in violation of the law of the state, with the death penalty being the primary punishment.  I could hold a self-righteous attitude and think that there is no way I would have condoned or participated in such things, but, I know far too well how far short of God’s glory I fall, and the reality is that you and I are no better than they.  Given the same circumstances, it is the height of pride to think that we would have acted differently. 

 

I am sure that you can find someone to say something good even about Hitler.  He did build the autobahn.

-- Bill, if you want to be heard, such things as this are not helping your cause.  Make your appeal to Scripture, and stop slandering people that you never knew.  God is the moral judge of Calvin, Augustine, Luther, etc., not Bill Ingersoll.  You have a lot to say Bill, and that’s fine, and I welcome a good discussion on the teaching of the Bible.  But your biggest objection to Calvinism so far has been character assassination, not Biblical exegesis.

  

Read what Philip Schaff said about Augustine and Christianity before Augustine.  You will find my points about Augustine well established if you are willing to do some research about the early Church.  Many western Christians (Roman Catholic and Calvinist) are myopic about the beliefs of Christians around the world and through the ages.

-- I have read what Schaff stated about Augustine and Christianity before Augustine, and I honestly cannot find anything even remotely close to what you have been saying.  Maybe you can provide an exact reference (i.e., volume and page number(s)).  In the meantime, I have taken the liberty to provide some of the things that Schaff did say:

 

In commenting on Augustines’ Confessions, Scahff says: 

 

“Of all autobiographies none has so happily avoided the reef of vanity and self-praise, and none has won so much esteem and love through its honesty and humility as that of St. Augustine…Here we see the great church leader of all times “prostrate in the dust, conversing with God, basking in His love…” He puts away from himself all honor, all greatness, all beauty, and lay them gratefully at the feet of the All-merciful.  The reader feels on every hand that Christianity is no dream or illusion, but truth and love, and he is carried along in adoration of the wonderful grace of God.”  (Vol 3, p. 990)

 

Schaff notes Augustine’s journey from the schools of Madaura, to his stays in Rome and Milan, and his:

 

“wanderings through the labyrinth of carnal pleasures, Manichaeism mock-wisdom, Academic skepticism, and Platonic idealism; till at last the prayers of his mother, the sermons of Ambrose, the biography of St. Anthony, and, above all, the Epistles of Paul, as so many instruments in the hand of the Holy Ghost, wrought in the man of 33 years that wonderful change which made him an incalculable blessing to the whole Christian world…” (vol 3, p. 991).  By the way, St. Anthony is regarded as the founder of monasticism in the East (ref, Christianity Through the Ages, by Earle Cairns, p. 145). 

 

More quotes:

 

“He was especially devoted to the poor, and, like Ambrose, upon exigency, caused the church vessels to be melted down to redeem prisoners.”  (Vol 3, p. 94)

 

“He was the champion of the orthodox doctrine against Manichean, Donatist, and Pelagian.”  (Vol 3, p. 994). 

 

That’s interesting, is it not?  Note, while you have been equating Augustine with Mani, history reports otherwise.

 

“He left no will, for in his voluntary poverty he had no earthly property to dispose of, except his library; this he bequeathed to the church…” (Vol 3, p. 996).

 

“His ideas fell like living seed into the soil of Europe, and produced abundant fruits in nations and countries of which he had never heard.”  (Vol 3, p. 997)

 

This is in direct contradiction of your view of the fruit produced by Augustinianism.  Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but at least Schaff was intellectually honest enough about the true fruit produced by Augustinianism, even though he vehemently disagreed with the Augustianian doctrine.

 

“Augustine…is a philosophical and theological genius of the first order, towering like a pyramid above his age, and looking down commandingly upon succeeding centuries.  He had a mind uncommonly fertile and deep, bold and soaring; and with it, what is better, a heart full of Christian love and humility.”  (Vol 3, p. 997).

 

“He combined the creative power of Tertullian with the churchly spirit of Cyprian, the speculative intellect of the Greek church with the practical tact of the Latin.”  (Vol 3, p. 997). 

 

So much for being “myopic.” 

 

“The centre of his system is the free redeeming grace of God in Christ, operating through the actual, historical church.  He is evangelical or Pauline in his doctrine of sin and grace, but catholic (that is, old catholic, not Roman Catholic) in his doctrine of the church.”  (Vol 3, pp. 998-999). 

 

This answers your assertions about Manichaeism/Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism.  Instead of tracing Augustine’s views on sin and grace (i.e., the gospel) to Manichaeism, etc., Schaff roots them in the teaching of the Apostle Paul.

 

“He refers to the most distinguished persons of Greece and Rome; he often alludes…to the earlier Greek and Latin fathers; to Eastern and Western heretics.”  (Vol 3, p. 1001). 

 

As for your singling out Roman Catholics and Calvinists as being “myopic” about the beliefs of Christians around the world and through the ages, to be “myopic,” as I understand it, is to be shortsighted, narrow-minded, and to lack tolerance.   So, I take this to mean that you are saying that Calvinists are shortsighted and/or intolerant of the beliefs of Christians around the world and through the ages.  A couple of points here:

 

1.  With all due respect Bill, but have you not also displayed the same intolerance and short-sightedness concerning the beliefs of Calvinists?  You are maintaining that your position is the correct one, and mine is the wrong one, and then you go so far as to presuppose and judge the condition of my soul when you saying: “turn to the Lord, and receive freedom and power in the Holy Ghost!”  As much as I think that the Reformed view is correct, I would never come to a conclusion that you, or anyone else, was not a believer simply because they rejected Calvinism.  I would definitely maintain that their position was contrary to Biblical Christianity, and had serious implications concerning the Gospel because it fundamentally undermines the perfect work of Christ on the cross.  However, I would not, and neither do Calvinists that I know and read, come to the conclusion that non-Reformed Christians are going to hell simply because they are not Reformed.   

 

2.  You have made precious little direct appeal to Scripture, but have instead offered one ad hominen argument after another, woven through one thread of logical fallacy after another.  Then, you have incorrectly and unfairly (my opinion) equated Calvinism with Manichaeism, among other things.  And, finally, your comments throughout belay a serious lack of a true understanding of what Calvinists actually teach and believe.  That for which you accuse others can rather easily be leveled against you as well Bill. 

 

            3.  In terms of intolerance, or narrow-mindedness, let me just state for the record that the truth, by its very nature, is both of those things.  That is the whole point, is it not, when we say that something is either true, or false?  We do not tolerate false doctrine any more than you do.  We are passionate about defending the Gospel, just as you are (of course, based on your comments, I do believe that you are preaching a false gospel).  Was Jesus myopic when He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me.”?  Was Peter myopic when he said that there is no other name given among men by which they must be saved?  Was Paul myopic when he aptly described the sovereignty of God in salvation, and then anticipated the objection, and said “who are you oh man to reply against God?”

 

            4.  As for not tolerating other Christians and their beliefs (in terms of persecuting them, etc.), I would agree that there have been deep failings in the past with regard to this.  However, this is something that can be leveled against just about every Christian “sect” (for lack of a better word), to include the Anabaptists, who were quite intolerant and violent in their opposition to Zwingli and others.  Thus, as the point was made earlier, we must not read our 21st century “sensibilities” back into history, and then condemn those who do not have the same commitment to “religious freedom” and pluralism as we do. 

 

Thus, your charge of us being myopic appears to me to be yet another rock that you’re throwing, unfairly I might add, instead of just dealing with the very real and voluminous exegetical appeal that is made by Calvinists in support of their position (a far cry from Rome, I might add). 

 

If you had read my article, you would have seen that we are certainly not “myopic” in the sense that we are maintaining that only Calvinists are Christians, as you have unfairly charged.  Your entire critique has been centered on undermining the character of those who hold to these doctrines, and then trying to connect them to the views held by heretics.  Who is it that is being myopic here Bill?    

 

Today, the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is covering the earth as the waters cover the sea.  More people than in any other period of history of the world are yielding their lives to Christ.  We are seeing 100s of millions of peoples all over the earth receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and receiving the fullness of the Holy Ghost. 

-- And just precisely how and why is this occurring Bill?  Is it because 100s of millions of people are suddenly smarter, or wiser, or more inherently righteous than the 100s of millions who have and still do reject Christ?  While you defer to the freewill of the individual as the cause of salvation, I will defer to another, to One who is far more powerful than fickle and feeble human ability:  the perfect work of Jesus Christ alone, who by His perfect life, substitutionary death on the cross, and bodily resurrection from the dead, secured and guaranteed the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, and whose work is being perfectly applied to those for whom Christ came to infallibly save:  His sheep.  The reason people are coming to Christ is because God is gathering His sheep that are scattered throughout the world.

 

Please note as well the difference between your statement, and mine. In your statement, the emphasis is wholly upon man and what he has done (or is doing).  Is this not always the case with those who hold to a non-Reformed perspective?  If everything ultimately hinges upon the freewill and power of man, then why should God be mentioned at all?  In non-Reformed thought, the emphasis will always be centered on man and what he is doing. 

 

It’s not TULIP that is reaching people.  It’s the freedom and power in the Holy Ghost in Christ Jesus.

 -- TULIP and “freedom and power in the Holy Ghost in Christ Jesus” are essentially the same thing.  It is, as you say, freedom in the Holy Ghost, not the so-called freedom of our impotent will.  This is what Reformation theology alone teaches.  Where all man-made systems exalt man and his inherent power over and against God and His sovereign will and power, Scripture exalts God and His sovereign will and power over and against the deceitful, wicked, hard, obstinate, blind, deaf, powerless heart of man. 

 

Secondly, I quite agree that a mere teaching (such as TULIP, or your freewill theology) doesn’t “reach” people. TULIP just describes certain aspects of the doctrine of salvation, and how and why salvation has or will occur. 

 

But neither is it “freedom and power in the Holy Ghost in Christ Jesus” that is reaching people.  Freedom and power in the Holy Ghost in Christ Jesus is not something that attracts the unbeliever; it is not what brings a sinner to Christ.  Those are things that happen to unbelievers once God has saved them.  You are making the effects of salvation the cause of salvation.  Actually, this may in fact be the real difference between the non-Reformed and Reformed views.  We say a person believes (i.e., exercises his will freely in choosing Christ) only because God has first chosen him, and then liberated his will, giving him the ability to choose Christ.  Our free choice of Christ is the “effect” of having been regenerated, not the cause of it.  The non-Reformed, however, reverse the order.  They say that based on our choice of God, God choices us, and then in time it is our freewill choice of Christ that is the cause of our regeneration.  Regeneration is the effect, and our freewill choice is the cause.  We could simplify this by saying that in Reformed theology, God is the sole cause of one’s salvation (it is grace alone, through faith alone, in by and because of Christ alone).  In non-Reformed theology, man is the cause of his salvation. Anyway, freedom and power in the Holy Ghost in Christ Jesus are the effects of having been saved.  What actually saves us is God and His grace.  It is this fundamental truth which non-Reformed theology’s ultimately deny (either knowingly or unknowingly).   

 

So, we cannot have it both ways:  either it is God and His power that is “reaching” people for Christ, or it is man, by his own inherent power, that is able to save himself by making the right decision to “accept” Jesus.  If you hold to the former, then you agree with the Bible’s teaching on that, and you are in agreement with the Calvinist at that point.  For those that hold to the latter, they hold to a system that has man and his power as the determinative cause of salvation, the one true sovereign over heaven earth, and they make God a debtor to man.    The Calvinist is merely saying that man is wholly dependent upon God for everything, even the power to come to Christ.  Deny that simple truth, and there is no such thing as a “Gospel.”

 

Much, much more could be said, but I fear I have already written way too much in terms of a reply to your short e-mail. 


In closing, again, I do thank you for your service to our country, as well as your e-mail.  I

hope that nothing that I said was taken in a way that it was not intended.  My intention was to present the truth in love, and to respectfully point out where I disagreed with your position. 

May God continue to richly bless you and yours by His amazing grace,

Yours In Christ,

 

 

John Orlando

 

John, may you turn to the Lord, and receive freedom and power in the Holy Ghost! 

                        -- God has already brought me to Himself and enabled me to receive freedom and power in the Holy Ghost.  Since it was entirely His doing, He receives every all of glory for it. Amen.

 

Bill, in closing, I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for your interaction on these difficult matters.  My prayer is that my tone came across as loving and respectful throughout.  That is a difficult feat to accomplish in writing, I’m sure you’d agree.  As it stands, I guess I have pretty much said all I can say with regard to the topic.  I hope that something I have said is of at least some value to you, if noting else, maybe you will gain a better understanding of what Calvinists actually believe. 

 

I am always available if you would like to discuss these matters, however, only if you are truly interested in gaining an understanding of the doctrines of grace.  If not, then I guess there’s really no point. It’s up to you. 

 

May the Lord bless you and keep, and may He cause His face to shine upon you,

 

 

John Orlando

 

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