[Speaker 0] Does truth exist?
[Speaker 1] Because you have faith, does that make this
[Speaker 1] book true?
[Speaker 0] Does God exist? So when someone says
[Speaker 1] there is no truth, if you apply the
[Speaker 1] claim to itself, what should you say? Is
[Speaker 1] that true? They don't think Christianity is true.
[Speaker 1] They're talked out of it. You know why
[Speaker 1] they're talked out of it? Because they've never
[Speaker 1] been talked into it.
[Speaker 0] Cross examining skeptical and atheistic views. Welcome to
[Speaker 0] cross examine with doctor Frank Turek.
[Speaker 2] Ladies and gentlemen, last week on this podcast,
[Speaker 2] we were tackling a question from John about
[Speaker 2] Romans chapter nine. And there's much in Romans
[Speaker 2] chapter nine that many Calvinists try and say,
[Speaker 2] well, man doesn't really have free choice. God
[Speaker 2] makes all the choices. He God has mercy
[Speaker 2] on whom he wants to have mercy and
[Speaker 2] compassion on whom he wants to have compassion
[Speaker 2] and hard and pharaohs heart. Who are you
[Speaker 2] to talk back to God and all this?
[Speaker 2] And a lot of Christians go, Oh, man,
[Speaker 2] that really seems like we don't have any
[Speaker 2] free will and God makes all the choose
[Speaker 2] and does all the choices. And now we
[Speaker 2] can't recant. We can't recant. We can't we
[Speaker 2] don't want to recant. We can't go back
[Speaker 2] and go through everything we did for the
[Speaker 2] past forty five minutes in the last program.
[Speaker 2] That's forty five minutes long. So I'm just
[Speaker 2] going to pick it up where we left
[Speaker 2] off with a very kind of brief summary.
[Speaker 2] We were talking about Romans chapter nine, and
[Speaker 2] I tried to make the case that Romans
[Speaker 2] chapter nine is not talking about the election
[Speaker 2] of individuals to salvation. It's talking about the
[Speaker 2] election of the nation of Israel. So we
[Speaker 2] went through that case and we also pointed
[Speaker 2] out that several places in the scriptures it
[Speaker 2] talks about that God doesn't want anybody to
[Speaker 2] be lost. He wants all to be saved.
[Speaker 2] And so we ask the question, if God
[Speaker 2] wants all to be saved and the Calvinists
[Speaker 2] are right, that God does all the saving,
[Speaker 2] then why isn't everyone saved? That would appear
[Speaker 2] to be a contradiction. And I think it's
[Speaker 2] not a contradiction because Calvinists are interpreting the
[Speaker 2] passages wrongly. And we went through some reasons
[Speaker 2] why in the last in the last show,
[Speaker 2] we're going to pick it up here. In
[Speaker 2] fact, I want to point out that when
[Speaker 2] we go toward the end of Romans chapter
[Speaker 2] nine, Paul says this in verse thirty. What
[Speaker 2] then shall we say that the Gentiles who
[Speaker 2] did not pursue righteousness have obtained it? A
[Speaker 2] righteousness that is by as if it were
[Speaker 2] by as if it were by works. He's
[Speaker 2] pointing out again, the issue is the Israelites
[Speaker 2] didn't have faith. And if the Calvinists are
[Speaker 2] right, it would make absolutely no sense for
[Speaker 2] Paul to say here that, well, the reason
[Speaker 2] that Israel isn't saved is because they went
[Speaker 2] about it by works when if they had
[Speaker 2] gone about it by faith, they would have
[Speaker 2] had faith because God had given them that
[Speaker 2] faith. Well, why didn't God just give him
[Speaker 2] the faith then? If God gives us faith,
[Speaker 2] why is he lambasting or at least scolding
[Speaker 2] Israel? In fact, why did he do it
[Speaker 2] throughout the old testament? If God just gives
[Speaker 2] people
[Speaker 0] faith, why does he, why is he saying
[Speaker 0] you guys don't have faith? Get it, repent
[Speaker 0] and believe
[Speaker 2] because human beings have a free choice. That's
[Speaker 2] why. And then in chapter ten, Paul says,
[Speaker 2] Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God
[Speaker 2] for the Israelites is that they may be
[Speaker 2] saved. See, Paul wants them to be saved.
[Speaker 2] That's why he's taken this three chapter detour
[Speaker 2] in the book of Romans. First two of
[Speaker 2] chapter ten says, for I can righteousness that
[Speaker 2] comes from God and sought to establish their
[Speaker 2] own. They did not submit to God's righteousness.
[Speaker 2] Christ is the end end of the law
[Speaker 2] so that there may be righteousness for everyone
[Speaker 2] who is chosen by God. No, for everyone
[Speaker 2] who believes. Why didn't they believe? Because they
[Speaker 2] did not submit to God's righteousness, not because
[Speaker 2] God didn't choose them. In fact, the whole
[Speaker 2] point of Romans nine is God did choose
[Speaker 2] them to be the nation through which he
[Speaker 2] was gonna save the world, but individuals still
[Speaker 2] needed to trust in Jesus. In fact, that's
[Speaker 2] why Paul is going on and on about
[Speaker 0] you got to you got
[Speaker 2] to come to God by faith, not by
[Speaker 2] works. So the kind of election Romans nine
[Speaker 2] is talking about is the election of the
[Speaker 2] nation of Israel, not the election of individuals
[Speaker 2] to salvation. And then last week, we went
[Speaker 2] through the knowledge that Moses had of the
[Speaker 2] Egyptian culture and religious practices. That's where the
[Speaker 2] hardening of the heart comes from, Because if
[Speaker 2] you harden Pharaoh's heart, it meant he wasn't
[Speaker 2] going to make it in the afterlife because
[Speaker 2] his heart was going to be heavier than
[Speaker 2] a feather. Heavier than a feather. And that
[Speaker 2] meant his heart was going to be devoured
[Speaker 2] by the demon goddess Ammit. And then we
[Speaker 2] pointed out in chapter eleven that the clincher
[Speaker 2] here is when Paul says in Romans eleven
[Speaker 2] twenty eight, as far as the gospel is
[Speaker 2] concerned, they meaning Israel are enemies on your
[Speaker 2] account. But as far as election is concerned,
[Speaker 2] they are loved on account of the patriarchs.
[Speaker 2] So he's bifurcating. He's separating the gospel from
[Speaker 2] election. You can't do that if this election
[Speaker 2] is to the gospel. It's obviously not to
[Speaker 2] the gospel. It's the election of the nation
[Speaker 2] of Israel to bring forth the nation through
[Speaker 2] whom God was going to save the whole
[Speaker 2] world. And then we went through the passages
[Speaker 2] in Ephesians pointing out that predestined doesn't mean
[Speaker 2] you don't have a choice. It essentially means
[Speaker 2] that once you make the choice, once you
[Speaker 2] believe, once you're in Christ, you're guaranteed to
[Speaker 2] be glorified. We also dealt with some passages
[Speaker 2] in John Chapter six, and there was an
[Speaker 2] entire debate on John six forty four between
[Speaker 2] Layton Flowers and James White. We'll put that
[Speaker 2] in the show notes. And this is about
[Speaker 2] the place we ended last week where we
[Speaker 2] said even if God is electing people to
[Speaker 2] salvation, it really is unavoidable because any universe
[Speaker 2] God elects to create, he knows the outcome,
[Speaker 2] but he's not doing it against our free
[Speaker 2] choice. He's doing it in accord with our
[Speaker 2] free choice. In fact, that's what first Peter
[Speaker 2] chapter one says. The very first and second
[Speaker 2] verse says this, Peter, an apostle of Jesus
[Speaker 2] Christ to God's elect, strangers in the world
[Speaker 2] scattered throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithina.
[Speaker 2] Here's the key phrase. Who have been chosen
[Speaker 2] according to the foreknowledge of God the Father
[Speaker 2] through the sanctifying work of the Spirit for
[Speaker 2] obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his
[Speaker 2] blood chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.
[Speaker 2] Now, the Bible is written from our perspective.
[Speaker 2] It's foreknowledge from our perspective, but it's just
[Speaker 2] knowledge to God's perspective. God doesn't have to
[Speaker 2] look down the corridor of time and go,
[Speaker 2] gee, I wonder. Let me see what those
[Speaker 2] guys are gonna do. He already knows. He
[Speaker 2] knows all things. He's he's infinite, which means
[Speaker 2] he knows everything there is to know, including
[Speaker 2] what you're gonna do. Oh, but I don't
[Speaker 2] have free will. No. You have free will
[Speaker 2] to do what you're gonna do. God just
[Speaker 2] knows how you're freely gonna do what you're
[Speaker 2] gonna do. He knows the free choices you're
[Speaker 2] gonna make. You still have free will. Just
[Speaker 2] because God knows what you're freely going to
[Speaker 2] do doesn't mean you don't have free will.
[Speaker 2] We unpack this more, in the last program,
[Speaker 2] so you got to go back and listen
[Speaker 2] to the last program. And for people to
[Speaker 2] say that, well, you're negating the sovereignty of
[Speaker 2] God if you give people free will. I
[Speaker 2] think that's absolute nonsense. In fact, I think
[Speaker 2] God is so sovereign that he can get
[Speaker 2] his will done through our free will. If
[Speaker 2] you're saying in order for God to remain
[Speaker 2] sovereign, he can't give other creatures free will.
[Speaker 2] That's not a very sovereign God. You're saying
[Speaker 2] there's something God can't do that's logically possible.
[Speaker 2] Why can't he sovereignly give us free will?
[Speaker 2] Suppose he sovereignly decides to do that. Who
[Speaker 2] are you to say he can't? Apparently, that's
[Speaker 2] what he's done because you can't have love
[Speaker 2] without free will. In fact, we'll unpack that
[Speaker 2] more in a minute. To say that God
[Speaker 2] must be a puppet master, that he has
[Speaker 2] to make all the choices for us to
[Speaker 2] get his will done, I think, is to
[Speaker 2] diminish the power and the glory of God.
[Speaker 2] I mean, Layton Flowers has a analogy here.
[Speaker 2] He says, who is the more glorious chess
[Speaker 2] master? The one who can beat you no
[Speaker 2] matter what you do, no matter what move
[Speaker 2] you make, or the one that has to
[Speaker 2] tell you where to move in order to
[Speaker 2] beat you. Obviously, the more glorious chess master
[Speaker 2] is the one who can allow you to
[Speaker 2] make any move you want, and he's still
[Speaker 2] gonna win. Not the guy who says in
[Speaker 2] order for me to
[Speaker 0] beat you, I've got to I've got to
[Speaker 0] basically move the pieces for you. That wouldn't
[Speaker 0] be very glorious.
[Speaker 2] Or imagine a football team. What's a more
[Speaker 2] glorious football team? The one that beats you
[Speaker 2] no matter what place you run or the
[Speaker 2] one that in order to beat you takes
[Speaker 2] your free will away by telling you what
[Speaker 2] plays to run so they can be ready
[Speaker 2] and stop them. Obviously, the more glorious football
[Speaker 2] team is the one that can give you
[Speaker 2] all the freedom you want and still beat
[Speaker 2] you down, still win.
[Speaker 0] That brings more glory to God, not that
[Speaker 0] he has to control everything and take free
[Speaker 0] will away from you. God is so sovereign
[Speaker 0] that
[Speaker 2] he can get his will done through our
[Speaker 2] free will. So, yes, God elected to create
[Speaker 2] this universe. And in that sense, he predestined
[Speaker 2] the outcome. He guaranteed the outcome. It's guaranteed.
[Speaker 2] Why? Because he knew what we do, but
[Speaker 2] he did it in accord with our free
[Speaker 2] will, not against our free will. Billy Graham
[Speaker 2] freely chose to follow Jesus. So far, Richard
[Speaker 2] Dawkins has freely chose to reject Jesus. Both
[Speaker 2] are freely doing what they're doing. And yet
[Speaker 2] both God always knew what they would do.
[Speaker 2] He always knew Billy Graham would believe, and
[Speaker 2] he always knew Richard Dawkins wouldn't, at least
[Speaker 2] at this point. Who knows? Maybe Richard Dawkins
[Speaker 2] will come around. He's speaking a lot more
[Speaker 2] favorably about Christianity lately. You never know.
[Speaker 0] Now, you might say, well, I got to
[Speaker 2] point out one other passage here. We've already
[Speaker 2] in the last podcast, we talked about some
[Speaker 2] passages that talk about how God wants everyone
[Speaker 2] to be saved. We talk about Ezekiel eighteen
[Speaker 2] thirty two for I take no pleasure in
[Speaker 2] the death of anyone declares the Lord, repent
[Speaker 2] and live. Second Peter three nine says the
[Speaker 2] Lord is slack, not concerning his promises. Some
[Speaker 2] count slackness, but his long suffering toward us.
[Speaker 2] In other words, he's patient with us, not
[Speaker 2] willing that any should perish, but that all
[Speaker 2] should come to repentance. Well, I also mentioned
[Speaker 2] first Timothy two. I'm going to read an
[Speaker 2] expanded section of first Timothy two, a few
[Speaker 2] more verses than what I read last time
[Speaker 2] because I think it's, provides more context. Here's
[Speaker 2] how First Timothy two starts. I urge then,
[Speaker 2] first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and
[Speaker 2] Thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings
[Speaker 2] and all those in authority that we may
[Speaker 2] live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness
[Speaker 2] and holiness. Let me stop right there, ladies
[Speaker 2] and gentlemen. That applies to our country right
[Speaker 0] now. Okay. We're just coming out of
[Speaker 2] a Republican convention. In fact, as I'm recording
[Speaker 2] this and recording this on Thursday, July eighteenth.
[Speaker 2] So it hasn't ended yet. As you're listening
[Speaker 2] to this, I haven't heard President Trump's, address.
[Speaker 2] I don't know how it ultimately turned out.
[Speaker 2] And I don't know that Biden's out of
[Speaker 2] the race yet. If you're listening to this
[Speaker 2] on Tuesday, sources are saying he's out already.
[Speaker 2] In any event, this is a time of
[Speaker 2] upheaval, quite obviously. President Trump was almost murdered
[Speaker 2] last week, And there are all sorts of
[Speaker 2] questions. We did a podcast on it last
[Speaker 2] week. Regardless of all that, we all ought
[Speaker 2] to be praying for anybody involved. All of
[Speaker 2] our leaders Trump, Biden, Harris, anybody in the
[Speaker 2] Senate and in the Congress, any of our
[Speaker 2] governors and state and local officials. We ought
[Speaker 0] to be praying for everyone. Why? That we
[Speaker 0] may live peaceful and quiet lives in all
[Speaker 0] godliness and holiness. A good government is conducive
[Speaker 0] to that. And we should we should we
[Speaker 0] should pray for everybody, not just so we
[Speaker 0] can live peaceful and quiet lives, but because
[Speaker 0] we care about people and want them to
[Speaker 2] know the truth and want us to lead
[Speaker 2] lead us well. Anyway, the next verse says
[Speaker 2] this. This is good that you're praying for
[Speaker 2] these people and please is God, our savior,
[Speaker 2] who wants all people to be saved and
[Speaker 2] to come to a knowledge of the truth.
[Speaker 2] For there is one God and one mediator
[Speaker 2] between God and man, the man Christ Jesus
[Speaker 2] who gave himself as a ransom for all
[Speaker 2] people doesn't say he gave us gave himself
[Speaker 2] as a ransom for just some gave himself
[Speaker 2] as a ransom for all people. Now, not
[Speaker 2] all people accept the ransom, but God has
[Speaker 2] provided it. You know, this is one of
[Speaker 2] the problems with the Calvinistic view. You know,
[Speaker 2] the Calvinistic tulip. You've probably heard the tulip
[Speaker 2] acronym, you know, t total depravity. You unconditional
[Speaker 2] election. Well, the L is limited atonement that
[Speaker 2] God only died for some people. This isn't
[Speaker 2] what this verse says. God died for all
[Speaker 2] people. He gave himself as a ransom for
[Speaker 2] all people. In fact, probably the most famous
[Speaker 2] verse in the Bible for God so loved
[Speaker 2] the world that he gave his one and
[Speaker 2] only son that whoever believes in him shall
[Speaker 2] not perish but have eternal life doesn't say
[Speaker 2] for God so loved the elect. He loved
[Speaker 2] the world. And that's important because it tells
[Speaker 2] you something about the nature of God.
[Speaker 0] So, if God wants all to be saved,
[Speaker 0] then why aren't all why why isn't everyone
[Speaker 0] saved? And the answer is free will. Now,
[Speaker 0] you might ask, well, why aren't more saved?
[Speaker 2] Why couldn't God have created a universe where
[Speaker 2] everyone believed? Well, that's logically possible, but it's
[Speaker 2] probably not actually achievable with free creatures because
[Speaker 2] even an all powerful God can't force free
[Speaker 2] creatures to do what he wants, because that
[Speaker 2] would be a contradiction. When we say God
[Speaker 2] is all powerful, what we mean is God
[Speaker 2] can do whatever is logically possible. But even
[Speaker 2] God can't do logically impossible things like he
[Speaker 2] can't create a square circle. Doesn't exist. Can't
[Speaker 2] create a married bachelor. Doesn't exist. I know
[Speaker 2] some guys try, but no. Can't create a
[Speaker 2] five sided triangle. Doesn't exist. Can't create an
[Speaker 2] honest politician. Yeah. There are some things that
[Speaker 2] are just too hard for God. Okay? In
[Speaker 2] fact, you can do some things that God
[Speaker 2] can't do. What can you do? Well, you
[Speaker 2] can. You can lie. God can't lie. If
[Speaker 2] he could lie, he wouldn't be the
[Speaker 0] standard of truth. God, you can go
[Speaker 2] out of existence. God can't. God can, or
[Speaker 2] you can change. God can't. What's he going
[Speaker 2] to change from? He's already a perfect being.
[Speaker 2] Any change would necessitate a move from perfection
[Speaker 2] to imperfection
[Speaker 0] so God can't force free creatures to do
[Speaker 0] what he wants. But he can create a
[Speaker 0] world of free creatures where some
[Speaker 2] of them believe freely and some of them
[Speaker 2] don't. And that's the world God chose to
[Speaker 2] create. Is God obligated not to create because
[Speaker 2] some people he creates don't believe? Are those
[Speaker 2] non believers given veto power over God's creation?
[Speaker 2] I don't think so. Why does that make
[Speaker 2] any sense? The people who don't believe freely
[Speaker 2] don't believe again. If you take free will
[Speaker 2] away, you're you're you're creating all sorts of
[Speaker 2] problems. In fact, here are some of the
[Speaker 2] problems. Well, before I do it, before I
[Speaker 2] get there, let me just point out this.
[Speaker 2] What God actually did. He created a world
[Speaker 2] of free creatures where the maximum number
[Speaker 0] of people believe in the minimum number of
[Speaker 0] people don't believe. And he
[Speaker 2] knew that before he created this universe, he
[Speaker 2] knew some would believe in some wouldn't. And
[Speaker 2] so that's the universe we have. And people
[Speaker 2] are freely believing and freely rejecting. God wants
[Speaker 2] all of them to believe, but some of
[Speaker 2] them don't because they have free will. Now,
[Speaker 2] what are the stakes of believing in this
[Speaker 2] hard five point Calvinism? What are the implications?
[Speaker 2] Well, my coauthor, Doctor. Norman Geiser, who dealt
[Speaker 2] in this manner quite a bit, in fact,
[Speaker 2] he wrote a book on it called Chosen
[Speaker 2] But Free, a great book to get if
[Speaker 2] you want to get into this in much
[Speaker 2] more detail, Pointed out that he's had several
[Speaker 2] people come to him who were just depressed
[Speaker 2] with fatalism, Even pastors. There's been pastors he's
[Speaker 2] known that one pastor is about to give
[Speaker 2] up being a pastor until he read chosen
[Speaker 2] but free and he said just just liberated
[Speaker 2] my mind.
[Speaker 0] Because I really thought, you know, what? Why
[Speaker 0] am
[Speaker 2] I even doing evangelism? I mean, what if
[Speaker 2] God is pulling all the strings? What's the
[Speaker 2] point? Yeah, exactly. No, this doesn't necessarily prove
[Speaker 2] Calvinism's fault. It's just a real big negative
[Speaker 2] implication of it. Well, actually, I might say
[Speaker 2] that the real hard for five point Calvinism,
[Speaker 2] if true, would be impossible to prove why.
[Speaker 2] Because if God makes all our choices for
[Speaker 2] us, then he's making the choice for what
[Speaker 2] we believe. If he's making the choice for
[Speaker 2] what we believe, that would mean that some
[Speaker 2] people are believing false things and God is
[Speaker 2] giving them those false thoughts. So now God
[Speaker 2] is a deceiver. So how can we trust
[Speaker 2] a deceiver at all? So this is a
[Speaker 2] problem if God is giving us
[Speaker 0] all our thoughts. Now, to be fair, one
[Speaker 2] of the great five point Calvinists was RC
[Speaker 2] Sproul. And I love RC Sproul. I mean,
[Speaker 2] he passed away six, seven years ago. He
[Speaker 2] was a great teacher. And what he said,
[Speaker 2] he basically said, we do have free will
[Speaker 2] to make certain choices, but not the the
[Speaker 2] free will to choose God. So Doctor. Sproul's
[Speaker 2] position appeared to be less deterministic than, say,
[Speaker 2] the materialistic atheists who say that, you know,
[Speaker 2] we're just like moist robots. They will say
[Speaker 2] that God gave or they will say that
[Speaker 2] physics gave us all our thoughts where maybe
[Speaker 2] the hard five point Calvinist will say, God
[Speaker 2] gave us all our thoughts. But Sproul is
[Speaker 2] kind of taking a middle position saying, no,
[Speaker 2] no, no. You know, we still have the
[Speaker 2] free will to make some choices, just not
[Speaker 2] the choice to choose Jesus. Now, that would
[Speaker 2] appear to me to be really kind of
[Speaker 2] arbitrary. Why would God give us the free
[Speaker 2] will to make choices that aren't as momentous?
[Speaker 2] Certainly not the most momentous choice we could
[Speaker 2] ever make, whether or not to follow Jesus.
[Speaker 2] Why would he give us free will to
[Speaker 2] do the more trivial choices but not the
[Speaker 2] ultimate choice? That doesn't seem to make sense.
[Speaker 2] And in fact, here's the problem. It makes
[Speaker 2] God, Calvinism does this hard five point Calvinism,
[Speaker 2] the author of evil. Because if God is
[Speaker 2] giving us is making all our choices, if
[Speaker 2] we don't really have free will, then God
[Speaker 2] is the one making those choices for us.
[Speaker 2] And some of the choices we make are
[Speaker 2] evil. Many years ago, Doctor. Geissler debated a
[Speaker 2] another Dallas Seminary professor when Doctor. Geissler was
[Speaker 2] there in the 1980s, a man by the
[Speaker 2] name of John Gerstner and John Gerstner was
[Speaker 2] a big follower of of Jonathan Edwards, who
[Speaker 2] was also a five point Calvinist, as I
[Speaker 2] understand it anyway. And Geissler and Gerstner were
[Speaker 2] having this debate on five point Calvinism. And
[Speaker 2] at one point, Geissler asked Gerstner this question,
[Speaker 2] does man have free will? And Gerstner said,
[Speaker 2] yes, man has free will to do what
[Speaker 2] he desires, but God gives him the desire
[Speaker 2] of his heart. So Geisler said, well, who
[Speaker 2] gave Adam the desire to sin? And Gerstner
[Speaker 2] said, mystery. And Geisler said, contradiction.
[Speaker 0] Why? Why do you punt to mystery when
[Speaker 0] you get back to
[Speaker 2] the choice of Adam? Because to say that
[Speaker 2] God gave Adam the desire to sin would
[Speaker 2] make God the author of evil. That's why
[Speaker 2] Gerstner tried to avoid it by saying it's
[Speaker 2] a mystery. No, either gave him the choice
[Speaker 2] or not. If he did give him the
[Speaker 2] choice, then God is the author of evil.
[Speaker 2] If he didn't give him the choice, then
[Speaker 2] Calvinism is false.
[Speaker 0] So which is it
[Speaker 2] now? The problem here is, is that when
[Speaker 2] you make God the author of evil, you
[Speaker 2] make him more like Allah.
[Speaker 0] Now, let me be clear
[Speaker 2] on something here. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't
[Speaker 2] want to impugn all Calvinists with this because
[Speaker 2] just because this might be true, what I'm
[Speaker 2] saying doesn't mean that everybody realizes it. I
[Speaker 2] mean, I discover new things all the time,
[Speaker 2] and I didn't know that a previous belief
[Speaker 2] I had led to this other belief. And
[Speaker 2] if I had, maybe I'd reevaluate the first
[Speaker 2] belief. So just because this might be news
[Speaker 2] to you, or this might be news to
[Speaker 2] you if in fact my reason is correct
[Speaker 2] here doesn't mean that you knew this because
[Speaker 2] look, we obviously, if it's news to you,
[Speaker 2] you didn't know it. I learned stuff all
[Speaker 2] the time.
[Speaker 0] I didn't realize those two beliefs were connected.
[Speaker 0] The problem is, I think these are connected.
[Speaker 2] I think that if hard five point Calvinism
[Speaker 2] is true, that God makes choices, particularly when
[Speaker 2] it comes to salvation, then God is the
[Speaker 2] author of evil because he then, against
[Speaker 0] the free will
[Speaker 2] of the individual, sends people made in
[Speaker 0] his image to hell against their will. That
[Speaker 0] would appear to
[Speaker 2] me to be evil. You don't have, a
[Speaker 2] free choice, and yet God is punishing you.
[Speaker 2] Now, think think about it this way, ladies
[Speaker 2] and gentlemen. If we deny that we have
[Speaker 2] free will, then there's no basis for moral
[Speaker 2] accountability. I mean, how can people be held
[Speaker 2] morally responsible for their, say, chemical reactions or
[Speaker 2] for a thought that God gave them an
[Speaker 2] evil thought that they went ahead and did
[Speaker 2] that they had no choice to do otherwise.
[Speaker 2] There's also no basis for reason why. Because
[Speaker 2] reason depends on the ability to choose between
[Speaker 2] at least one correct proposition and at least
[Speaker 2] one incorrect proposition. So how could people engage
[Speaker 2] in debate if all propositions are the result
[Speaker 2] of deterministic matter in motion? Now, this, of
[Speaker 2] course, isn't necessarily the Calvinist point
[Speaker 0] of view, but it certainly is the deterministic
[Speaker 0] point of view. And sometimes Calvinists do take
[Speaker 0] this point
[Speaker 2] of view. They will just say it's not
[Speaker 2] determined by just matter in motion.
[Speaker 0] It's determined by God giving you those choices.
[Speaker 0] Well, why is God given me a choice
[Speaker 0] that's either evil or false?
[Speaker 2] And, of course, without free will, we would
[Speaker 2] be forced to defend the absurd notion that
[Speaker 2] the universe made itself. Well, you could say
[Speaker 2] God had free will to make the universe
[Speaker 2] okay. But then everything from cars to computers
[Speaker 2] that we
[Speaker 0] made was made by not our free choice.
[Speaker 0] Now, if you want to say God did
[Speaker 0] it all, okay, God's given us choices to
[Speaker 0] do good things, but
[Speaker 2] it also means he's given us choices. Or
[Speaker 2] let me put
[Speaker 0] it another way. He's making choices for us
[Speaker 0] to do evil. This is this is
[Speaker 2] a problem, ladies and gentlemen. Whether you're a
[Speaker 2] determinist in the atheistic sense where just molecules
[Speaker 2] bumping into one another are causing us to
[Speaker 2] do things, or you're a hard five point
[Speaker 2] Calvinist saying that God is causing us to
[Speaker 2] do all these things. You've got a problem
[Speaker 2] because you don't have moral responsibility either way.
[Speaker 2] And it makes the author of all this
[Speaker 2] doing evil himself. Of course, this would also
[Speaker 2] make love a problem. I've heard some people
[Speaker 2] say some Calvinists say, well, no, you you
[Speaker 2] don't need free will to love. You just
[Speaker 2] love your kids. That kind
[Speaker 0] of thing. Well, there may be instances where
[Speaker 0] you just love people because say
[Speaker 2] they're your children, they're your family. But love
[Speaker 2] is not merely a feeling. How can you
[Speaker 2] love your enemies if love is
[Speaker 0] a feeling? You can't because you don't feel
[Speaker 0] good about your enemies. And how can you
[Speaker 0] vow to love someone in marriage If love
[Speaker 0] is merely a feeling? You can't you can't
[Speaker 0] feel a certain way for
[Speaker 2] the next fifty years. You can't say I'll
[Speaker 2] never be tired. I'll never be hungry. I'll
[Speaker 2] never get angry again. You can't. That would
[Speaker 2] be like saying that when you're at the
[Speaker 2] marriage altar to say, Oh, I love you.
[Speaker 2] And it's all built on feelings. I'm gonna
[Speaker 2] feel like I love you for the next
[Speaker 2] fifty years. You can't do that. In fact,
[Speaker 2] that's why you take a vow. Because love
[Speaker 2] isn't based on feelings. Feelings may start a
[Speaker 2] relationship, but feelings don't necessarily keep a relationship
[Speaker 2] going. That's why you have a vow. You
[Speaker 2] don't need a vow when you feel really
[Speaker 2] good about the other person, when you're infatuated
[Speaker 2] with the other person, and all you wanna
[Speaker 2] do is be with the other person. You're
[Speaker 2] all lovey dovey. You don't need a vow.
[Speaker 2] You need a vow when you wake up
[Speaker 2] ten years into the marriage and you look
[Speaker 2] over at the person next to you and
[Speaker 2] you go, you again. Why did it have
[Speaker 2] to be you again? That's when you need
[Speaker 2] a vow,
[Speaker 0] And you need free will in order to
[Speaker 0] carry out the vow. If you don't have
[Speaker 0] free will, then how can
[Speaker 2] you be held accountable for wanting to walk
[Speaker 2] out of your marriage?
[Speaker 0] God gave you the the desire to walk
[Speaker 0] out
[Speaker 2] of your marriage. Despite the fact he says
[Speaker 2] don't do it. If the hard five point
[Speaker 2] Calvinistic view is true that we don't have
[Speaker 2] free will, This whole universe is a sham.
[Speaker 2] We're just puppets to the puppet master. And
[Speaker 2] this whole moral accountability, good and evil doesn't
[Speaker 2] really exist. That's a really high price to
[Speaker 2] pay. In fact, why would Jesus even need
[Speaker 2] to come if no one ever really did
[Speaker 2] evil?
[Speaker 0] The whole reason that Christianity or that Jesus
[Speaker 0] came was to save us from the problem
[Speaker 0] of evil. If none of
[Speaker 2] us ever did evil, there'd be no need
[Speaker 2] for Jesus to come and save us. But
[Speaker 2] we did do evil and we still do
[Speaker 2] evil. That's why Jesus needed to come. And
[Speaker 2] we did evil and do evil because we're
[Speaker 2] corrupt, because our natures are bent that way
[Speaker 2] and we make free choices to do evil.
[Speaker 2] God doesn't make all the choices for us.
[Speaker 0] So there
[Speaker 2] are many other passages maybe
[Speaker 0] we could talk about, but I think when
[Speaker 0] you look
[Speaker 2] at Romans nine, Ephesians one, John six, they
[Speaker 2] don't do what the Calvinists think they do.
[Speaker 2] We are chosen because God knows all things,
[Speaker 2] but we're still free. He's chosen this world
[Speaker 2] knowing what we would freely do. Yahweh is
[Speaker 2] not Allah. He loves all and he wants
[Speaker 2] all to be saved. For God so loved
[Speaker 2] the world that he gave his one and
[Speaker 2] only son that whoever believes in him shall
[Speaker 2] not perish but have eternal life. That's true,
[Speaker 2] ladies and gentlemen. Hard five point Calvinism isn't
[Speaker 2] true, thankfully. Now we're going to investigate more
[Speaker 2] of this, particularly the whole hardening of the
[Speaker 2] heart motif that Moses talks about and Paul
[Speaker 2] talks about when we go to Egypt this
[Speaker 2] December. We're going to Egypt and Saudi Arabia
[Speaker 2] to see the real Mount Sinai. And we're
[Speaker 2] going to look at evidence for the exodus.
[Speaker 2] We're going to see all the amazing sites
[Speaker 2] in Egypt. We're going to see evidence for
[Speaker 2] maybe even Joseph Moses, the Exodus. And then
[Speaker 2] we're going to go and actually climb what
[Speaker 2] we think is the real Mount Sinai in
[Speaker 2] Saudi Arabia. Go to cross examine dot org,
[Speaker 2] click on events. You'll see that trip there.
[Speaker 2] We're only taking one bus. We're about half
[Speaker 2] full right now. You don't want to miss
[Speaker 2] this. It's going to be wonderful. A trip
[Speaker 2] of a lifetime. And we're going to stay
[Speaker 2] in the best places so you can enjoy
[Speaker 2] yourself and rest when we're not out there
[Speaker 2] seeing the amazing sights that very few people
[Speaker 2] get to see. All right, friends. Great being
[Speaker 2] with you. Oh, and by the way, don't
[Speaker 2] forget the online course How to Convince People
[Speaker 2] to be Pro Life with the great Scott
[Speaker 2] Klusendorf. It starts August fifth, and, it's a
[Speaker 2] course that will help you be better equipped
[Speaker 2] to deal with the most divisive issue, one
[Speaker 2] of the most divisive issues in our country,
[Speaker 2] the issue of abortion. It starts again August
[Speaker 2] fifth. And if you're part of the premium
[Speaker 2] version, you're going to want to be a
[Speaker 2] part of that because you're going to be
[Speaker 2] able to ask questions of the great Scott
[Speaker 2] Klusendorf on several Zoom sessions. Also want to
[Speaker 2] mention this weekend, I'm going to be down
[Speaker 2] in Palm Beach with my friend Charlie Kirk,
[Speaker 2] my friend Seth Dillon, Eric Metaxas, Al Beth
[Speaker 2] Stuckey, and many other speakers at the Believer's
[Speaker 2] Summit put out put out by TP USA
[Speaker 2] Faith. If you wanna be a part of
[Speaker 2] that, and I hope you do, there's gonna
[Speaker 2] be several thousand believers there in Palm Beach.
[Speaker 2] Go to cross examine dot org. Click on
[Speaker 2] events. You will see it there. And Lord
[Speaker 2] willing I'll either see you there or I'll