Sovereignty or Free Will? Open Theism and Calvinism are Strange Bed Fellows

Soteriology 101 w/ Dr. Leighton Flowers

Leighton Flowers

Baptist, Atonement, Reformed, Bible, Religion & Spirituality, Calvinism, Biblical, Arminianism, Calvin, Christianity, Christian

4.8 • 826 Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2014

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Picking up where we left off last time in our discussion covering the debate with Dr. James White via Twitter...

Which view of Sovereignty is really greater? The Calvinistic view or the non-Calvinistic view?

Which is more impressive to you? The man you has to play both sides of the chess board to ensure victory or the man who can soundly defeat every opponent?

AW Tozer said, "God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, 'What doest thou?' Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so." - A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God

God's sovereignty is best reflected in the fact that He accomplishes His purpose through free creature and doesn't have to control them to ensure his victory. A God less than sovereign would be scared to allow for autonomously free creatures.

We also take a look at the many texts which support the concept of autonomy and I relate that to the concept of "human responsiblity."

Please feel free to leave comments or questions that can be addressed in future podcasts. Visit us online at www.soteriology101.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this show is going to be a lot of fun because we're going to dive in back where we left off with the conversation with James White via Twitter, and we're going to answer the question which of the two views really highlights the sovereignty of God.
0:14.1	Let's dive in.
0:15.1	To answer all my questions, you can never tell no lies, you're always telling me what it's all about, but some don't listen to your
0:22.0	replies. You say to us, we can't do enough, and when I try, I'm a fool. This time I'm spent,
0:29.2	and I've realized that I can't make it through. I need you. The words you say, your gracious
0:35.5	love just gives you away. The you say you're so believable
0:41.9	oh god god welcome to the soteryology 101 podcast with professor latent flowers join our online
0:52.9	university classroom as we discuss the doctrines of grace
0:57.0	and God's amazing plan for salvation.
0:59.0	You're so believable.
1:05.0	If you were walking in the park and you sell an elderly man who was a chess master from years by and you knew how wise and smart and
1:12.7	talented this man was and he was playing chess all by himself and he was playing chess on both sides
1:19.4	of the board and you walked up to him and you said sir why are you playing both sides of the chess board
1:25.9	and he said well i want to ensure my, and the only way to really ensure the victory
1:31.3	is for me to be in complete control of everything that happens on this chessboard.
1:35.8	Now, suppose you continue to walk in the park, and you came upon another chessmaster,
1:42.5	who was taking on one opponent after another, after another,
1:47.0	beating them soundly with every move, 10, 20, 30 steps ahead of them on every single play.
1:55.6	So masterful, so wise, so good at chess that no opponent that came against him even had a chance because
2:03.6	he was so much better than every single one of them.
2:07.6	Which of the two chess masters is more powerful?
2:10.6	Which of one is more impressive to you?
	...

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