In this episode of A Reasonable Response, Robert Bosley evaluates common anti-Calvinist arguments and explains why they ultimately fail to persuade when measured against the teaching of Scripture.

Bosley argues that these objections often rest on an elevated view of human autonomy and a misunderstanding of God’s sovereignty and love. When Scripture is allowed to speak on its own terms—especially regarding God’s will, His decree, and man’s relationship to Him—the doctrines of grace emerge with clarity.

This episode challenges listeners to examine the Bible carefully and honestly, contending that a faithful reading of the text leads to a consistent and compelling case for Calvinism.

Yes, I used to get the Ligonier tapes in the mail, you know, from Ligonier Ministries, from R.C. Sproul. And sometimes if they got caught in my thing, you know, you had to get it with a pencil and, you know, fix it. You know, that was your repair kit was a pencil. Maybe Dr.

Flowers, you'd benefit from going back and listening to some of those tapes again. Welcome to A Reasonable Response. I'm Robert Bosley, and the purpose of this podcast is to give a reasoned response to issues related to the Christian faith from a Reformed Baptist perspective. Each episode contains what we call the breakdown, where I respond to a video on the topic at hand, which today is the issue of Calvinism, or the doctrines of grace. And today we're going to do something a little bit different, and we're going to jump straight into the breakdown, because there's a lot to get to in this video.

["Soteriology 101"] Today for the breakdown, we're gonna be looking at a video from the Soteriology 101 YouTube page of Dr. Leighton Flowers titled Calvinism Affects Apologetics and he's joined by Dr. Frank Turek. This video is about 16 minutes long and we're gonna look at a few, a lot of it. The title, as it says, is mainly geared towards how Calvinism they think affects your approach to and beliefs about apologetics and evangelism.

But we're also going to use this just to examine some of these common arguments that are used to criticize and try to rebut the doctrines of grace and how not only the arguments about apologetics fail, But just the arguments against Calvinism itself fail. So with that out of the way, let's look at clip one. So does it really matter what you believe about free will predestination Calvinism or not when you're doing apologetics? Yeah. Well, ironically, let me go back to something you said earlier.

Ironically, I think that Calvinists don't take God's sovereignty seriously enough. Why? Because I think that God is so sovereign that he can get his will done through our free will. And apparently Calvinists don't think that. You know, Calvinists think, oh, if God is sovereign, he can't give us free will.

This is a common line or lines like it that you'll hear from anti-Calvinists that God is so sovereign that he's able to perfectly accomplish his will through our free will. Of course, they're defining free will as complete libertarian free will. Calvinists just don't take God's sovereignty seriously enough. You'll hear this from guys like A.W. Tozer, C.S.

Lewis, so on and so forth. Of course, the problem is it's really a meaningless, incoherent statement. It's meant to sound pious, but really at the end of the day says nothing. Because the question is, well, how? What's the mechanism by which God accomplishes His will perfectly through our free will, assuming their definition of free will?

One will will have to move out of the way and make room for the other. Otherwise the best you can come up with is that well God is essentially just playing catch-up and trying to make the best out of the situation he's been handed. But that's not really sovereignty, is it? Alternatively, God can negate our free will to accomplish his desires, whether we agree to it or not, but then that's not the libertarian free will that they so strongly want to hold on to, then, is it? So no, by their definition, you can't hold on to both of these things.

Rather, it's better to have the confessional, reformed, and I believe biblical view of what both sovereignty and free will are. Our confession states that we have a free will, and this free will is defined not as an absolute autonomous freedom to do anything whatsoever you want to do, rather It's a freedom to act according to your nature. And what is our nature? Well, the nature of every person born post Genesis 3 is that of a fallen, sinful human being that is now by nature a child of wrath and at war with God. And the confession posits the idea that God is the first cause of all things in His decree.

He is the reason why all things exist, why all things happen. And we are true secondary causes. We are genuinely responsible. We make real choices. And the fact that we make secondary causes and the things that makes them even real and makes them matter is the fact that God is the first cause.

So yes, there is a sense in which God's decree is accomplished through our free will, but you have to have the right definition of free will. And it's not the definition that guys like Dr. Flowers or Dr. Turek propose. Completely different thing.

This is not the biblical idea of what it means to have free will. To be honest about looking at the scriptures, I think Calvinists can make a case from the scriptures and interpret them in a Calvinistic way. I don't think they're totally out to lunch when they do that. But what I do say to them is, yeah, you could interpret it that way. I think you're interpreting it wrongly when you interpret it that way, but you could make a case to interpret it that way.

But why would you interpret it that way when it makes, A, God the author of evil, because now we don't have free choice and God makes all our choices, including our choice to do evil. And secondly, takes away the free will of man. When you see other passages that say God wants all to be saved and, you know, I'm going to, I don't know about you, but in my house, we're going to choose the Lord. And, you know, verses like this or passages like this, which seem to take away all human responsibility away. Why would you interpret it in a way that makes God the author of evil and takes human responsibility away.

I don't get that because you can easily interpret it in what I think is the proper way to say that, yes, God chooses. We all know God chooses. Here Dr. Turek shows that either he doesn't really understand or maybe he doesn't really care about what Calvinists actually teach and believe. This is really inexcusable.

I expect more from someone who has a doctor in front of their name. A book or two has been written about this topic over the last 500 years. The confessional position, the agreed upon position of almost anyone who will call themselves a Calvinist is that God is not the author of sin. For example, the second London Baptist confession that I hold to, chapter 3 paragraph 1 says, God has decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably all things whatsoever comes to pass. Yet, so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor has fellowship with any therein." Now of course there are some Calvinists, particularly those who would be considered hyper-Calvinists, who have embraced the idea that God is the author of sin in a sense, but that's not the standard reformed Calvinistic position.

Author, in this case, is generally understood in the sense of one who is the effective cause or the effective agent, one that makes something happen. God does not make anyone sin. God is the first cause who's brought all things into existence and is the ground of all things that are and is the reason why secondary causes happen, but that does not mean that God is standing behind the sinner pointing a gun to their head telling them to sin. That is a different thing. Now I would be interested to see what passages Turk is referring to here that he says, you know, we could make a good case for the Calvinist view that would then require in his opinion making God the author of sin.

I guarantee you that any passage he comes up with is something related to God's decree or his general sovereignty over the world, not anything that would actually cause him to be the one making sin itself or putting sin in the heart of a human being. There's nothing in scripture or the Calvinistic interpretation of it that leads to that conclusion. Second, he again misrepresents the Calvinist position when he says that in our view, we are saying that God is the one who makes all our choices. No, again, this is very basic stuff. Our choices are real.

The reformed position is that your choices are real. You have a will to actually do things and that does mean something. You're not a robot. You're not simply a puppet on strings. You make real meaningful choices.

We even make the genuine choice to believe. But why does anyone do that? It's because God has opened the heart of stone, changed it into a heart of flesh so that now you are free to believe. So yes, Joshua could say, choose who you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, absolutely.

But the question is, why would anyone, Joshua included, say that? Well, it's not because they're smarter or better or just naturally more holy or anything like that. It's because God has first done a work in them so that they come to God freely and willingly. Again, as the Confession puts it in chapter 10 paragraph 1, God renewing their wills and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely made willing by His grace. That's unavoidable, Layton, as you know.

It's unavoidable that God makes choices and when He knows all things and when He chooses to create this universe, He's going to choose the outcome because He knows how it's going to turn out. But as we said earlier, that doesn't mean he's taking away our free will. Yes, he chooses, but we still freely do what we do. So Dr. Turk affirms that God chooses, God makes a choice, and he gives the example of God choosing when he's making the world with his omniscience, knowing all things, choosing to create and then determining the end.

This is really astonishing to hear from him because it completely contradicts his position. I'm assuming that he holds to the classical doctrine of God's omniscience, that God has always known all things whatsoever in any circumstance, counterfactuals, real events, all things are known to God. So if this is true and God has perfect knowledge of all things, all actions, events, even counterfactuals before he created and this isn't even to get into the discussion of where this knowledge is based on or comes from apart from a sovereign decree. That's another issue entirely but when he creates the world with this perfect knowledge, when he did so, he determined not only the end, but everything leading up to it from the beginning. How could it be otherwise If he knows all things and he chooses to create such a world, that choice to create determines everything that will happen.

So I want to ask Dr. Turek, if God had perfect knowledge and created the world with this perfect knowledge, Was it ever possible or did it ever happen that anyone falsified God's knowledge? That someone did something he was unaware of or didn't expect to happen? And if he holds the classical view of God's omniscience, he has to say no. But if the answer is no, then he's refuted his own position, since the choice to create has then, with that infallible knowledge of all events, determined everything that will happen.

And God could not be wrong or in error. And that choice to create has fixed every choice anyone would ever make. Where is the room for his idea of libertarian free will in that? If you do ask, well then why are we to be blamed for that? That's when they quote Romans 9 at you out of context in my estimation because they say, well, that's exactly what the interlocutor in Paul's mind is asking.

Why are we to be blamed for that? That's when they quote Romans 9 at you, out of context in my estimation, because they say, well, that's exactly what the interlocutor in Paul's mind is asking. Why are we to be blamed for doing what he has created us and molded us as a potter to do? And then, of course, I've got to go back over the lesson in Romans 9 as to what Paul is actually talking about, a rebellious hardened Israelite, not somebody who was born to reprobate, and they were cut off because of their unbelief and being hardened judicially by God to bring about the crucifixion and the engrafting of the Gentiles. It's not about reprobation.

It's about judicial hardening of Israel. And once I explained that, then the back and forth fireworks over how do you interpret this text comes apart. So right on the bat, even if we assume his conclusion about Romans nine, that it's not about divine election, It's only about Paul explaining the hardened, unbelieving Israelites to bring about the crucifixion. You're still putting yourself in a bad position, Dr. Flowers, because you're saying that, well, man has this libertarian free will that God will not bother until he does.

You're now saying that God has hardened their hearts, he has determined that they will be lost, and he has put this situation about that they are going to do evil things for a good result. You're assuming a Calvinistic position just in this one instance. I don't see how that helps your argument really. You're running away from your own position into almost hours when the text forces you to because there's no other way to read it. Now of course when we actually look at Romans 9, I don't agree with his idea that this is only a defense of this judicial hardening of certain Israelites and that led to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Paul is drawing from Old Testament example to explain the present unbelief of Israel, not just in the days of Jesus but even in Paul's own day he's explaining why do some not believe when their own Messiah was sent to them that the one promise throughout all their own scriptures why has Israel as a whole rejected him? And he's explaining that ultimately it is God who has mercy on whom he will have mercy, compassion on whom he will have compassion. It is God who draws the sinner in and he has a purpose in their unbelief for this time. And using this example now that Israel is the one that's hardened where previously what he's drawing from in Exodus, Israel was the one that was being the objects of his mercy, and Egypt, Pharaoh personally, was the one that was hardened. And you go back to the chapter that that's drawn from, and it's very clear that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, just as Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Again, sovereignty, human responsibility, they go hand in hand. And the very language that Paul uses refutes this idea that he's only talking about a certain subset of Israelites because he puts it in general categories. Verse 18, therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. Not certain Israelites he hardens, whoever. You will say to me, why does he find fault for who has resisted his will?

Again, it's open, it's broad, it's not limited specifically to Israelites. And really, the kicker is at the end, the whole purpose that God is doing all this is that verse 23, he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom he called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles." His position is really unsustainable. And if you want a good example of this, I would encourage you to check out his debate he had a few years ago on Romans 9 with Dr. James White. If you have two viable options in front of you, two viable interpretations in front of you, one of which has actually been more popular throughout Christian history among scholars, namely the view that we hold to, the more free will perspective, if you will, has always been more popular throughout church history than the more predestinarian or deterministic kind of interpretations.

If you have both of those in front of you and you're actually studying the best of both scholars from both sides, why would you choose the one that seems to make God the author of sin, that seems to impugn His character, that seems to possibly undermine other very strong texts that indicate God's frustration for when we don't choose to follow him and and the wrath of God and the punishment of God for doing things that he's supposedly determined for you to do? Oh well first off in my opinion I would say we don't have two equally viable interpretations for passages like Romans 9, John 6, John 10, Ephesians 1 and 2. I've yet to see a non-Calvinist interpretation that is remotely as compelling as the Reformed interpretation. Secondly, I'm kind of surprised to hear him say that, well, this has been the majority position of scholars throughout history. I don't think Dr.

Flowers wants to do theology by majority vote. If so, I highly doubt his position as a functionally Pelagian Baptist is going to really stand in the end. That's not how we do theology. I was going to say, I don't know why they choose it late and I can speculate it might be because it's easier. Right.

And it might easier in the sense that, well, look, these people are just on their way to hell. There's nothing I can do about it. You know, I I'll throw a Bible verse at him, see if, you know, see if, if maybe they'll respond. I don't know if they're elect or not, but gee, if they don't respond, I guess they're just not elect. So I don't really have the motivation for evangelism like I should, right?

If that's the case, it might just be easier to say, I can explain this. God just hasn't selected them. And it also makes me feel better. Well, he selected me, right? He selected me and I don't really have any free choice in it, but gee, I'm pretty special now.

This is genuinely frustrating and honestly offensive. Dr. Turek, you know, he says, I'm just speculating, I'm not a Calvinist. Well, maybe you should do what scripture says and think the best of your brothers, assuming you think Calvinists are brothers, instead of impugning our motives and beliefs that we think were special, because that's not what Calvinism teaches, that's not the consequence of it. In fact, there's a great article written years ago by Dr.

Al Martin who recently passed away called the practical implications of Calvinism and in this he rebuts the idea of the proud Calvinist and he I'll just read part of it quoting where he is actually citing B.B. Warfield. He says, the Calvinist is the man who has seen God and who having seen God in his glory is filled in on the one hand with a sense of his own unworthiness to stand in God's sight as a creature and much more as a sinner. And then on the other hand with adoring wonder that nevertheless this God is a God who receives sinners. That is the ultimate conclusion of Calvinism rightly understood.

Now are there arrogant Calvinists? Of course there are. Are there arrogant Arminians? Of course there are, because arrogance is a human sin problem, not a Calvinist sin problem. As for the motivation to evangelism question, This is a common accusation made against Calvinists, against reform people all the time.

Well, you have no motivation to evangelize if God has determined all things, he'll just save whoever. Okay, but history proves otherwise. The modern missionary movement started by Calvinists. It was Calvinists that took the gospel to India, to Southeast Asia, to China. It was Calvinists doing all these things, even in the Reformation.

Calvin himself from Geneva trained and sent church planters and missionaries all over Europe, even to Brazil. Don't tell me Calvinists have no motivation to evangelize or do mission work. Calvinists actually can go in confidence knowing that wherever they go, God has prepared a people that will receive his message and we can go in confidence, not hoping that our words are going to be persuasive enough, but going in confidence knowing that God's word works with his spirit to accomplish God's will, and his will is that men from every tongue, tribe, and nation will hear, repent, and believe the gospel. Well, I think if, you know, back when I was a Calvinist, I would think it was probably the latter. I hadn't really been introduced to the other side, and therefore I adopted that interpretation because it was the one introduced to me first.

And so that's the reason that I adopted it. I don't think I ever had the motivation of being lazy or trying to avoid evangelism when I was a Calvinist. I don't ever remember that being a motivation, though it could be the motivation of some. I have no idea. We can't read the minds of Calvinists as to why they choose one particular interpretation over another.

It's just been my experience in the time doing this that very few of, especially the young internet type Calvinists, have actually given time to really examine the deep theological robust scholars from the other side. They have mostly kind of surrounded themselves in echo chamber of other Calvinists, telling them what the other side believes. And that's one of the reasons they treat us like we're doofuses sometimes, is because they just assume that we're as dumb as the scholars and the leaders within their world, their community are telling them about us. The idea that all these internet Calvinists are only hearing Calvinism and other Calvinists telling them what non-Calvinists believe, in my experience, that's just not the case. From my personal experience, Calvinists are pretty well read broadly and understand what other people believe.

It's usually the Arminians or provisionists or whatever he's calling himself now who are pretty insular in their reading and in their sources of information. If you go to the Soteriology 101 website or Facebook page, it is the definition of an echo chamber. I mean, pot, meat, kettle. It's ridiculous. This accusation is really just silly.

That would be my big question is what's the motivation of being an apologist to begin with if you're going to adopt the Calvinistic system? What's the motivation again to first of all obey Jesus. He told us to do it, to glorify God. And we also, even if we have a high view of God's decree, I agree with what the confession says that God has ordained all things whatsoever come to pass. At the same time, I also believe what Paul says that how will they believe without a preacher?

People need to be told the gospel because God has ordained not only the ends but also the means by which those ends are accomplished. As why Paul also said in Timothy that he suffers and endures all things for the sake of the elect that they may obtain salvation. The idea that if you have a high view of God's decree, you have no motivation to do apologetics, no motivation to do evangelism, no reason to do these things, it simply couldn't be further from the truth. We have the greatest motivation. We have the motivation of one, wanting to please and obey Jesus.

And two, we have the motivation knowing that we will be successful because it's not based on my ability but on the sovereign work of God by His Spirit accomplishing what He has intended. We go in confidence knowing that his word does not return in vain. I think God gives us partially anyway, not to a full extent, but he gives us the dignity of causality. What do I mean by that? That God gives us the ability to affect not only time but eternity with what we do.

And if God does it all, then why are we even here? I mean, he doesn't need us to preach the gospel if he determines without, overrides the free will of human beings. He doesn't need us to do a thing, right? But he does, if we do have free will, he gives us the opportunity To actually affect time and eternity I've never listened to dr. Turik extensively.

I've mainly just seen clips of him online. I had much more respect for him before watching this video. That's absolutely an egregious thing to say. It's so frustrating to have so many people who have consistently said the same thing that God's decree does not abolish human responsibility, there is a kind of freedom even within the decree of God, and that we are truly responsible and make real choices. This is the consistent Calvinistic presentation of our interpretation of Scripture for 500 years now, this level of misrepresentation is inexcusable.

And he's simply not a reliable source of information if this is how he treats other Christians. I'm reminded of a debate years ago at Dallas Theological Seminary that my mentor, Dr. Norman Geiser, had with Dr. John Gerstner, who Geiser described as the reincarnation of Jonathan Edwards. And they were having a debate over this very issue.

And according to Geisler, I never got Gerstner's side of it, but according to Geisler, here's what happened in one of the exchanges. Dr. Geisler turned to Gerstner. Of course, Geisler is giving our view, the fact that we're chosen but free, and Gerstner's the five-point Calvinist, and he turns to Gerstner and he says, does man have free will? And Gerstner says, yes, well, man has free will to do what he desires, but God gives him the desires of his heart.

And so Geisler turned to Gerstner and said, well, then who gave Lucifer the desire to sin? And Gerstner said, mystery. And Geisler said, contradiction. You see, even R.C. Sproul, When he got to that point, he would just say, mystery.

And R.C. Sproul was one of the most brilliant philosophers out there. He would just say, mystery. When the reality is it's a contradiction to say that God is all good, yet he gives his creatures the desire to do evil. He takes away their free will, the desire to do evil, and then they act on that.

I don't know if this conversation ever happened or if it's being retold accurately. One, I don't think that's what the Psalm means when it says God will give you the desires of your heart. It's not saying God's going to put those desires in you, but rather God will grant you what your heart is desiring. And as far as I know, that's pretty much how that's been understood by everyone. I doubt there's very many people who think it's God puts the desire into you.

But this idea that it's only the Calvinists who have to appeal to mystery on the question of where sin comes from. Everyone has to appeal to mystery at some point in this discussion because we're simply not told everything. We are finite creatures that God has given us. Yeah, the Bible is a fairly large book, but it's a fairly small amount of God's knowledge. We are given only so much about the origins of sin and the fallen condition, we're not told much, we're only told what we need to know.

And where the first impulse for sin came from in the heart of Adam or the heart of Satan, We don't know. And both sides have to say, mystery. Simply saying, well, free will, that doesn't actually answer the question. Because if you've lived in perfect peace and harmony and blessedness with God for however long you've existed, Where would that impulse to rebel come from? Free will isn't an adequate explanation.

Both sides have to say mystery. It's not a Calvinist problem. It's simply a Christian problem because there's only so much information contained in Genesis. That's not the God, That's Allah, okay? God is not essentially good.

Whatever God does is good. That's Allah. That's volunteerism. That's not essentialism. There's no ground of goodness if the five-point Calvinist God is the God of the Bible.

That just results in a voluntaristic Allah. Whatever God does is good. So I've heard some people even describe the God of the five-point Calvinist as Allah. Now, of course, they would push back on that and make some modifications somehow, but I think that's inevitably where it leads, Leighton. It leads to a God who's arbitrary.

Yes, we push back on it because it's stupid. The idea that the God of Calvinism is the same as the God of the Muslims, if you actually read the Quran, if you compare that to what the New Testament and what the Old Testament says, the two are very different. Yes, the God of Islam is very arbitrary. He has no standard by which he determines what his actions are going to be. As Tarek says, it's just whatever he does, because he does it, is good.

That's not true with the Christian and the Calvinistic interpretation. God in and of himself is goodness, therefore everything he does is good. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's not true or it doesn't mean that it isn't real or that it would somehow be evil just because you as a finite sinful creature don't understand the perfect omniscient eternal God. I think our view of sovereignty is much higher than that of the determinist determinist perspective of a Calvinist because ultimately God is having to play both sides of the chessboard in order to ensure his victory versus God's just better at chess than all of his opponents and That's how we know he's going to win, because he's just better at chess. No matter what moves his opponents make, he's always going to be able to accomplish his purpose through their free choices.

Dr. Flowers is famous, or maybe infamous, for his analogies, and this one, like most of the others, falls flat. In both of these ideas, we can't simply boil the decree of God down to a board game. But again, you see the very low view of God and the very exalted view of man that he presents here in his opinion, God is just the better chess player as if you and God are on relatively equal footing and he's just a little bit smarter than you or just a little bit more familiar with the game than you are. Now God is in a class all to himself the eternal omnipotent ase creator who exists in and of and through himself, he is not playing your game.

This is ridiculous. And it just, again, shows what a superficial view of God that he has and how much he exalts Man to a level that is completely inappropriate The impetus to sin like he gives us the impetus to sin and the impetus to choose him. So someone who believes in free will can say the reason God allows evil is because he wants this to be a moral universe so he gives us free choice. The only way we can love and make moral choices is if we have some sort of libertarian free will, but that opens up the possibility for us to do evil as well. And God thought it was worth having a moral universe.

He thought love was worth giving people free will so they could love, but that opens up the possibility for evil. He could have made a robot world, which maybe I'm characterizing it too uncharitably, but that seems to me what Calvinism is, at least the hard five-point version. A couple things to respond to here. First, the idea that Calvinists have no answer for the problem of evil, I would actually say it's completely backwards. The Arminian doesn't really have a good justification for the problem of evil or a good explanation for the problem of evil.

Because ultimately, as he just said, well, evil just happens to exist because God wanted a world of love or moral choice or whatever. So you're saying that evil is essentially an unintended side effect of this other thing that God wanted, whereas the Reformed position is that, well, yes, how that first impulse came is mysterious, but the actual reason for evil is that God has a purpose in it. This is the one of the great strengths of Reformed theology is we can look at all the pain and heartache and sorrow caused by sin and say it's not meaningless. There is a purpose in it. It's hard to see.

It is often devastating and can be very difficult to understand why God allowed it. But at the end of the day we can say, well, God has a purpose for it. It is ultimately for the good of his people and it is for his own glory and God has made this world so that this is here with a reason, not simply as an unintended side effect from something else God wanted. And this brings up another issue. In this perspective, what is actually the object of God's love?

He talks about God wants a world, a moral world where people choose to love him. Okay, but what is the effect of this on God's love? What is actually the object of God's love in this theory? It seems to me it's pretty inescapable that ultimately, according to Frank Turek and Leighton Flowers' opinions here, that the real object of God's love is not human beings themselves but human free will because that's the one thing he will not violate, the one thing he respects above all other things. Whereas in the reformed position, God loves individual people by name, loves them so much that he does whatever is necessary by his divine power to secure their greatest good.

And what's their greatest good? It's to be with Him. This is why the Calvinist position has no problem with the love of God. It actually exalts the love of God, whereas this view minimizes every part of God's attributes, But especially his love. And lastly, if his opinion is that love is only possible if there's this libertarian free will and we can make the choice to love or the choice to sin, is he then saying that There's no love in the eternal state when we're with God forever Because as far as I know he would not say that there's gonna be any possibility for sin After the final judgment among those who are the redeemed So if free will is taken away is then love not real in heaven?

Was love not real before creation, before the fall? I mean, there are so many problems with this because what he's doing is he's going outside of scripture not content with what scripture actually says and just assuming his own philosophy and importing that into the scriptures to justify this elevated view of man and this over emphasized idea of man's free will. It's completely misunderstanding what it means to love God and to be loved by God. So in summary, again, we see here that the anti-Calvinist arguments really just are not persuasive. They kind of fall flat every time I listen to guys like this.

I'm more of a Calvinist at the end. They are just not persuasive. If you let the Bible speak on its own terms and you come to a genuinely wanting to understand what the Bible itself teaches What God himself has said about his own will his decree and our relationship to it. I think you'll come away as a Calvinist. I don't see any other option if you are genuinely wanting to be careful with the text of scripture and handling it accurately.

Well, that's all the time we have for today. If you want to connect with me personally, I'm on X at R. Bosley 1689. If you'd like to learn more about church and family life, you can do so at churchandfamilylife.com. And don't forget, this week we have our national conference coming up in Ridgecrest, North Carolina on biblical manhood and womanhood.

There's still a few days left to sign up. We'd love to see you there and have you join us. Thanks. See you next time.