In today episode we:

• Continue the Phil Johnson debate over Twitter by reminding everyone that non-Calvinists, such as myself, may not believe God determines everything, but that doesn't mean we believe God determines nothing.  Calvinists, like Phil Johnson and James White point to examples of God's deterministic activity in the world as if its the smoking gun proving their deterministic premise. 

 

• If you witnessed me having to hold down my son in order to give him a shot for diabeties because he was afraid of needles, would you walk away and conclude that Leighton always uses brute stength to over power the will of his son, denying his child any freedom or personhood or independance?  Of course not, yet this is what deterministic Calvnists do with the scriptures.  They take examples of God's interaction within the course of human history and insist this is how God determines everything.  This does nothing except undermine the unique divine nature of such events recorded in scripture.

 

• I quote John MacArthur as saying, "He [God] simply permits evil agents to work, then overrules evil for His own wise and holy ends." And Phil concluded that the concept of 'simple permission' was jejune yet failed to ever provide any real distinction between God's active role in determining, authoring or permitting evil. He did reference Hendryx who seems to be much more deterministic in his approach than MacArthur.

 

• I play a clip from John Piper where he graciously explains that some won't be able to see God from the deterministic perspective as Holy, so if that is where they are they shouldn't accept it until they see it clearly taught in the text.

 

• Lastly, I quote Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the Prince of Baptist Preachers, as he implores fellow believers to remain true to the text even if its inconsistent with their theological system. Here is that quote:

Sermon on I Tim. 2:4 by Charles Haddon Spurgeon:

"What then? Shall we try to put another meaning into the text than that which it fairly bears? I trow not. You must, most of you, be acquainted with the general method in which our older Calvinistic friends deal with this text. "All men," say they, —"that is, some men": as if the Holy Ghost could not have said "some men" if he had meant some men. "All men," say they; "that is, some of all sorts of men": as if the Lord could not have said "all sorts of men" if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written "all men," and unquestionably he means all men. I know how to get rid of the force of the "alls" according to that critical method which some time ago was very current, but I do not see how it can be applied here with due regard to truth. I was reading just now the exposition of a very able doctor who explains the text so as to explain it away; he applies grammatical gunpowder to it, and explodes it by way of expounding it. I thought when I read his exposition that it would have been a very capital comment upon the text if it had read, "Who will not have all men to be saved, nor come to a knowledge of the truth." Had such been the inspired language every remark of the learned doctor would have been exactly in keeping, but as it happens to say, "Who will have all men to be saved," his observations are more than a little out of place. My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God. I never thought it to be any very great crime to seem to be inconsistent with myself, for who am I that I should everlastingly be consistent? But I do think it a great crime to be so inconsistent with the word of God that I should want to lop away a bough or even a twig from so much as a single tree of the forest of Scripture. God forbid that I should cut or shape, even in the least degree, any divine expression. So runs the text, and so we must read it, "God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."" —"Salvation By Knowing the Truth"

 

Now, if what some Calvinists say is true about all five points hanging or falling together, and to deny any one point makes one "not really a Calvinist," then they need to stop quoting Spurgeon as if he is Calvinistic because he is anything but consistent in the 5 point system being proclaimed by many today. 

 

For those interested, here is a copy of the tweet I send in response to the article by John Hendryx:

1. Hendryx wrote: "God ordains all things that come to pass (Eph 1:11)" - Failing to define what he mean's by 'ordains' one must ask if the concept of divine "permission" applies or does he take the typical approach of convoluting the clear meaning of the word "permit" by suggesting God is somehow "permitting what he determined" (unnecessary redundancy)? Who knows?

Eph 1:11 "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will."

Can someone point out where it teaches that God determines all things in this verse, because what I read is exactly what MacArthur wrote to us jejune common folk: "He simply permits evil agents to work, then overrules evil for His own wise and holy ends. Ultimately He is able to make all things-including all the fruits of all the evil of all time-work together for a greater good."

I find a significant difference in God "working out the evil for good" and God determining/decreeing/causing/ordaining evil, but maybe other less jejune folks don't?

2. Hendryx wrote: "according to compatibilism, human choices are exercised voluntarily but the desires and circumstances that bring about these choices about occur through divine determinism" 

Can someone explain how this is different from animal instinct and why animals aren't likewise held morally accountable for their choices given that they are acting in accordance with their innate predetermined desires too?

3. Hendryx wrote: "For example, God is said to specifically ordain the crucifixion of His Son"

Ok, so God's active involvement in ensuring the redemption of sin on the cross is supposed to prove God is equally active in bringing about the sins that needed redemption? 

BTW, just so others know. Indeterminists, like myself, don't deny God's active role in hardening (blinding people from truth or giving them over to their sin) in order to ensure certain UNIQUE and SPECIAL events throughout human history come to pass. We just don't use such divinely ordained events as proof texts to suggest God is equally as active in every mundane happenstance in the entire world (i.e. universal determinism of all things is somehow proven by some events God determined). We don't believe God's role in ensuring the redemption of mankind somehow proves God likewise ensure the holocaust or Dahmer's heinous evil, for instance. We reference those divine events as supernatural or miraculous because of God's active and unique role in them, and suggesting God plays the same role in EVERY event only undermines that divine uniqueness.