Who Makes the Final Choice in Salvation? Brown vs. Bennett

Here is Dr. Michael L. Brown’s debate with Pastor Bruce Bennett on the subject of Who Makes the Final Choice in Salvation – God or Man?

Predestination, Election, and the Will of God: Brown vs. White

Here is Dr. Michael L. Brown’s debate with Dr. James White on the subject of Predestination, Election, and the Will of God:

10 Questions for Calvinists

10 Questions for Calvinists

1. Can God genuinely desire the salvation of those whom He, from eternity, unconditionally determined not to save, and is, in the words of Calvin, “pleased to exclude” and “doom to destruction”?  Or in the case of those who eschew the more passive doctrine of preterition and opt for the more active doctrine of reprobation, I ask: can God genuinely desire the salvation of those whom He has specifically created for the express purpose of destroying, who are, to quote Calvin, “doomed from the womb to certain death, whereby God is glorified by their destruction”?

2. If God has indeed causally determined and decreed all that comes to pass, isn’t it incoherent to think that our prayers influence God’s answers to our prayers?  Further, wouldn’t prayer be like someone putting on a sock puppet, and then having the sock puppet ask him to do something?  And to extend the analogy even further, wouldn’t God’s answer/s to prayer be like someone answering a request that he had his own sock puppet ask himself?

3. Regarding the Parable of the Sower (Luke 8:4-18), is the Calvinistic doctrine of Irresistible Grace compatible with Satan actively stealing away the Word of God (the ‘seed’) from people to prevent them from believing (Luke 8:12)?  In other words, wouldn’t it be pointless for Satan to steal the Word from people, when these very people whom he is attempting to prevent believing cannot believe anyway, due to Total Depravity, and indeed, cannot believe until after they are already regenerated?

4. Regarding Luke 22:14-23, is the Calvinistic doctrine of Limited Atonement compatible with the fact that Judas Iscariot – who would have been better off had he never been born (Mark 14:21), and whom Jesus called a ‘devil’ (John 6:70) – was among those for whom Jesus Christ said He gave His body and shed His blood?  If so, wouldn’t that mean that Judas Iscariot is among the elect?

5. God specifically states that there were sins that He “did not command or decree” (Jer. 19:5).  Indeed, these sins did not even “come into my [God’s] mind” (Jer. 19:5; cf. Jer. 7:30-31; 32:35).  If God has indeed causally determined and decreed all that comes to pass, isn’t it incoherent to believe that He has causally determined and decreed sins that He did not command or decree, indeed, sins that did not even come into His mind to command or decree?  Further, does the fact that these sins occurred without God first decreeing them mean that the sins were not under God’s sovereign rule?

6. In 1 Samuel 23, David learned that Saul was plotting harm against him (vv. 7-9), and so inquired of God as to 1) whether the people of Keilah would surrender him into Saul’s hand, and 2) whether Saul would indeed come to Keilah.  Regarding both inquiries, God answered in the affirmative: Saul would come to Keilah, and the people of Keilah would surrender David into Saul’s hand (vv. 10-12).  David and his men swiftly fled from Keilah (v. 13), and even though Saul sought David every day, God would not surrender David into his hand (v. 14).  According to this passage, it would appear that God had foreknowledge of events that, in fact, never came to pass.  Doesn’t this passage contradict the Calvinistic tenet that God can foreknow the future only if He has already causally determined said future?  On the Calvinist view, if the above-stated events never came to pass, then surely God did not foreordain (or even permit) them to come to pass, so how then could God have foreknowledge of events that never came to pass?

7. The Apostle Paul states that “those who are perishing… refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thes. 2:10; emphasis added).  Even the Hyper-Calvinist John Gill said of this passage, “the reason therefore of these men’s perishing is not the decree of God, nor even want of the means of grace, the revelation of the Gospel, but their rejection and contempt of it” (emphasis added).  Isn’t the obvious implication that those who are perishing, in spite of the fact that they do ultimately perish, had a legitimate chance of being saved?

8. In the Bible, Christians are described as having “died to sin”(Rom. 6:2; cf. Rom. 6:7, 8, 11; 7:4-6; Gal 2:19; Col. 2:20; 3:3; 2 Tim. 2:11).  Before conversion, the unregenerate are obviously described as being “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1; cf. Col. 2:13). Calvinists (eg., Boice and Ryken) describe the spiritually dead as having “all the passive properties belonging to a corpse” in that “like a spiritual corpse, he is unable to make a single move toward God, think a right thought about God, or even respond to God”.  If being dead in sin entails not being able to make a single move toward God or even respond to God, does being dead to sin entail not being able to make a single move toward sin or even respond to sin?

9. Regarding the Apostle Paul’s warning to be sober-minded, watchful, and to resist the devil (1 Pet. 5:8-9), is the Calvinistic doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints (which entails ‘inevitable perseverance’, ‘once saved, always saved’, and if anyone apostatizes, they were ‘never saved to begin with’) compatible with Satan actively prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8-9)?  In other words, wouldn’t it be pointless for Satan to seek to devour people whose salvation cannot possibly be put in jeopardy?  And even if he actually does successfully ‘devour’ someone, wouldn’t that be sure proof that the person was never saved to begin with, and thus render the act of ‘devouring’ futile?

10. John Calvin taught what is known as ‘evanescent grace’ (Institutes, 3.2.11).  Calvin thus taught that God bestows grace on the reprobate (or non-elect) and implants faith in them that is “so similar to the elect” that sometimes, there is virtually “no difference” between the elect and the non-elect.  Calvin further taught that, “In the elect alone he implants the living root of faith, so that they persevere even to the end”.  In other words, true saving faith only proves to be truly saving if it perseveres to the very end. In light of this, is it possible for a Calvinist to have true assurance of salvation?  Doesn’t this doctrine actually undermine the Biblical markers for assurance?  How can someone know that his present faith is genuine, if genuine faith only proves to be genuine if it perseveres to the very end?  How can a person be sure that the inner witness of the Holy Spirit is not an “inferior operation of the Spirit” which “afterwards proves evanescent,” the “better to convict them, and leave them without excuse”? Can a person even have assurance by producing fruit, considering that Calvin taught that the reprobate, through evanescent grace, “may for several years… produce fruit”?

Adam Clarke on Acts 13:48

Notes from Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible on Acts 13:48:

“As many as were ordained to eternal life believed—This text has been most pitifully misunderstood. Many suppose that it simply means that those in that assembly who were fore-ordained; or predestinated by God’s decree, to eternal life, believed under the influence of that decree. Now, we should be careful to examine what a word means, before we attempt to fix its meaning. Whatever τεταγμενοι may mean, which is the word we translate ordained, it is neither προτεταγμενοι nor προορισμενοι which the apostle uses, but simply τεταγμενοι, which includes no idea of pre-ordination or pre-destination of any kind. And if it even did, it would be rather hazardous to say that all those who believed at this time were such as actually persevered unto the end, and were saved unto eternal life.

But, leaving all these precarious matters, what does the word τεταγμενος mean? The verb ταττω or τασσω signifies to place, set, order, appoint, dispose; hence it has been considered here as implying the disposition or readiness of mind of several persons in the congregation, such as the religious proselytes mentioned Acts 13:43, who possessed the reverse of the disposition of those Jews who spake against those things, contradicting and blaspheming, Acts 13:45.

Though the word in this place has been variously translated, yet, of all the meanings ever put on it, none agrees worse with its nature and known signification than that which represents it as intending those who were predestinated to eternal life: this is no meaning of the term, and should never be applied to it.

Let us, without prejudice, consider the scope of the place: the Jews contradicted and blasphemed; the religious proselytes heard attentively, and received the word of life: the one party were utterly indisposed, through their own stubbornness, to receive the Gospel; the others, destitute of prejudice and prepossession, were glad to hear that, in the order of God, the Gentiles were included in the covenant of salvation through Christ Jesus; they, therefore, in this good state and order of mind, believed.

Those who seek for the plain meaning of the word will find it here: those who wish to make out a sense, not from the Greek word, its use among the best Greek writers, and the obvious sense of the evangelist, but from their own creed, may continue to puzzle themselves and others; kindle their own fire, compass themselves with sparks, and walk in the light of their own fire, and of the sparks which they have kindled; and, in consequence, lie down in sorrow, having bidden adieu to the true meaning of a passage so very simple, taken in its connection, that one must wonder how it ever came to be misunderstood and misapplied.”

The Asbury Bible Commentary on Acts 13:48

Notes from the Asbury Bible Commentary (available online here) on Acts 13:48:

“Galatian Mission to Gentiles (13:13–14:28)

A number of significant features cluster around Paul’s ministry in Pisidian Antioch. First, Pisidian Antioch was a Roman colony, the highest political status in the Roman world. Second, this is the longest account of Paul’s work in any place he visited. Third, up to now, Luke’s order of names has been Barnabas and Saul (see 9:27; 11:25, 30; 12:25; 13:1, 2, 7); now it becomes Paul and Barnabas (see 13:13, 43, 46, 50; 14:19-20; 15:2, 22, 35-36), except when Jerusalem is the focus (14:12, 14, where “apostle” is applied to Paul for the only time, a term elsewhere associated only with Jerusalem; 15:12, 25, in Jerusalem). Fourth, the term God-fearers (10:2, 22, 35; 13:16, 26, a Jewish reference) is replaced by the secular term devout (13:43, 50; 16:14; 17:4, 17; 18:7) to describe the Gentiles who worship with the Jewish community. This signals a shift from a Jewish to a gentile perspective. Fifth, “the word of God” (4:31; 6:2, 7; 8:14; 11:1; 12:24; 13:5, 7, 44, 46) becomes the word of the Lord (13:44 [variant], 48, 49; 15:35, 36; 19:10). By all these activities, Luke is indicating the profound nature of what takes place in Pisidian Antioch. This is the radical shift of the Christian outreach from a Jewish to a gentile frame of reference.

The shift becomes reality because the Jews rejected the proclamation of God’s fulfillment of the old covenant in the new (13:16-45). Jewish Christians in Jerusalem had experienced the same rejection, but Paul has an option not available to them: outreach to the gentile world (13:46-49). God often has to leave behind a community of “faithful” who have become closed to the possibility that God might do something new. The response is great because God had already prepared the way. All who were appointed for eternal life believed (v. 48), rather than some kind of deterministic predestination that would leave some doomed, more likely represents the awareness that God had already been at work preparing the way for this response by Gentiles; in Wesleyan terms, they were the recipients of prevenient grace.

A typical pattern now emerges. The old covenant community allies itself with the political power structure to act against the new work of God (13:50). A community of faith that takes refuge in the secular power structure to maintain its status quo reflects the institutionalization of belief.

Iconium (14:1-7) was an instant replay of Pisidian Antioch. First Jews and Greeks (i.e., God-fearers) in the synagogue believe; then unbelieving Jews drive the Christians out and enlist the support of secular authorities to persecute them.

Lystra (14:8-20), however, is different. For the first time, Luke portrays the Christian outreach to a purely gentile community. The synagogue, with its God-fearers who form the usual bridge to the gentile world, is absent. Paul clothes the Gospel in the worldview of his audience who clearly perceive Paul (Hermes) and Barnabas (Zeus) from their own pagan outlook. This is always a difficult enterprise. The Gospel must be presented in a frame of reference capable of being received by the hearers, yet it must not be confined to that frame of reference. When God’s work begins to become indiginized in such a way, institutionalized belief tends to become most violent in its reactions.

The one who had stoned Stephen at the point where Christian outreach was pressing against the limits of purely Jewish involvement, now himself is stoned for crossing the boundary to the gentile world. Paul’s restoration and return to Lystra, however, was a witness to the Resurrection and to the reality of the new order being proclaimed. This kind of witness should be a characteristic of Christian life. Whenever we are left for dead by those who attack us, we should, in God’s grace, rise up and return to them as a witness to the reality of God’s presence and power.

Luke notes the ministry in Derbe (14:20-21), which prepares the way for Paul’s second mission (16:1).

It is significant to note that an essential part of Paul’s mission was the establishment of structure for the communities of faith (14:22-23), a structure that would enable the believers to continue in the faith and to endure the tribulation that accompanied faith.

The return to Syrian Antioch highlights the radical nature of what had happened: God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (14:27)!