Hello and welcome back to Sochiology 101.

We're going to be playing a clip from the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper,

who you know, you've heard me say many times before I have a lot of respect for.

He's worked with us at Texas Baptist before. He's a very humble, gracious man. Much of what he teaches, I agree with, but

obviously I disagree with his soteriology. And he's being asked a question about C.S. Lewis, one of my

favorite authors and a man that I know that John Piper has a lot of respect for. So let's just

take a minute and listen to this

first question. And then we'll get into what John Piper says about it. Is the Calvinist

Armenian debate overblown? It's a question today from a young man, a listener to the podcast

who writes in to ask us this. Hello, Pastor John. I've argued about predestination and free will with fellow believers for years.

I'm a five-point Calvinist myself, but lately these conversations have grown tiresome to me.

No amount of debate seems to settle all the questions, and I recently read a letter by C.S. Louis,

where he called the Calvinist Armenian debate pretty much pointless because it only answers questions about this life, answers meaningless in eternity.

Lewis wrote this, quote, both the statement that our final destination is already settled,

it's Calvinism, and the view that it still may be either heaven or hell,

Armenianism, seemed to me to imply the ultimate reality of time,

which I don't believe in.

The controversy is one I can't join on either side,

for I think that in the real, timeless world, it is meaningless, end quote.

Pastor John, I think Lewis raises a fair question here.

Is this whole debate time bound?

And even within time, I find myself more and more asking,

...