It's the fact of I'm sharing with you what I would see as good news.

You wouldn't.

I get it.

But the thing is, there's a difference between saying this is the freedom of speech to say this is what the Bible says.

I'm not telling you.

You have to believe it.

See, I'm not forcing you to be a Christian.

I'm not.

And, and there's no, no Christians are trying to legislate to force you to be a Christian or go to go to church.

Have you seen Project 2025?

Did you see Act Blue 2025?

No, I have not.

Where does that, does that legislate that people have to be in church?

I don't know if it does that.

This is Apologetics Live to answer your questions.

Your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rapaport.

We are live Apologetics Live here to answer your most challeng challenging questions that you have about God and the Bible.

As we say here every week, I can answer any question you have about God and the Bible.

If you think I cannot, Please go to apologeticslive.com Thursday nights, 8 to 10 Eastern Time.

Join in the discussion.

Just scroll down to the little streamyard link there with the duck icon.

Come in, Ask me your most challenging question as their godless grandma did in that opening.

I sometimes have an answer like I did for her.

But just remember one thing I don't know is a perfectly good answer.

Never said it'd be a satisfying one.

I just said I can always give you an answer.

Sometimes I'm just going to say I don't know.

This is a Ministry of Striving.

4enerity.org Let me bring in my long lost co host, Drew.

This is what happens when you start your own company.

You go off of the scene, I.

Leave, I come back and I got this big beard kind of like you.

Yeah.

Actually right now we'll bring everyone.

If at some point we'll probably bring everyone in this backstage and at least right now, everyone who's backstage has a nice beard.

I'm just going to say we have latent flowers.

I'm going to put a poll out there now so people can get ready to answer.

I'm going to ask who looks to be older, Leighton Flowers or myself.

When we bring him in with, with his glorious beard because he said that I'm looking like Santa Claus.

He's saying I'm looking like Santa Claus.

And I can see it, but you know, because I've never seen Layton with a beard.

Usually every video I've seen he's clean shaven, he's got a really nice beard.

Yeah, Yeah, I.

I think he had it when we were out at the Open Air Theology Conference last year.

I can't remember.

That was on why Calvinism.

Layton was there.

We had a great time of discussion.

Let me just say for the record, I had a couple of people ask, why are you having latent on anyone asking that is clearly not a regular viewer.

Here at Apologetics Live, we always bring in people we disagree with because we like good discussions and we like to show.

Well, we're here for Apologetics.

Not only are we going to have the discussions, but we want to also display how to have discussions without losing your mind, losing your patience.

Okay, maybe last episode was kind of hard with the guy that wanted to argue that Jesus was the son of God and not God, but he was God, but had the spirit of God.

Yeah.

If any of you did not watch the last episode, you try to figure out what that guy was actually saying.

Because after two hours, I'm still trying to figure out what Minister Andrew was talking about.

It was not clear.

And he kept saying.

He was saying so clearly.

All right, so before we bring Layton in, some things.

Not really.

Maybe in the news section.

But I just.

I posted this because I thought this was really funny.

Drew, I don't know if you saw.

I've been doing more.

Trying to do some more short videos, you know, and I.

I've seen them.

I haven't had a chance to listen to them, though.

Yeah, they're short.

They're short.

So I'm just doing them, like, when I'm driving, trying to do, like, two to five minute videos.

So just.

That's dangerous, right?

Well, technically, my hands are.

Oh, wait, no, technically, my hands don't have to be on the wheel.

The car was driving.

I.

I had nothing to do with it.

I just have to keep my eyes on the road.

Yeah.

I mean, I just.

You know, you're getting older, right?

The beard, you're getting older.

That.

Yeah.

Well, it's a little dangerous.

I want to make sure everyone around you is protected.

Yeah.

So I just.

It was.

I happened to be in the car when I thought about it, and so I.

You know.

But I did one on transgenderism.

The hypocrisy of transgenderism.

Because the issue is with transgenderism, they.

They.

When you see a.

A boy playing with dolls and they go, oh, that's really a girl.

What they're actually doing is proving that they don't believe there's Multiple genders.

Because, well, if there were multiple genders, then a boy playing with dolls wouldn't be a problem.

But they, they take the stereotypical opposite and go, oh, that's what it.

That must be.

Right.

And so I did a video on that.

And so someone contacted me saying that she was a news magazine reporter or whatever.

All that comment.

I did see that.

Yeah.

And so she basically was asking me, by what authority do I have to speak on transgenderism since I'm not a biologist?

My response was the same as you do.

I mean, like, I don't think she's realized that just because she reports on things doesn't make her an expert.

Like, she's not a biologist either.

Yeah.

This is crazy, right?

It's crazy.

I mean, we see all these reporters that think they're experts and everything because they invent stuff.

Right.

They misrepresent what other people say.

They invent a narrative, and all of a sudden they're an expert on it.

Yeah.

So I, I see you start a couple things before we bring Leighton in really quickly.

Ed Romine, it looks like, you know, Romaine, which is a lettuce.

So if you call him Romaine, he's going to say it.

I, I, you starred this, and I'm curious why.

So, so I started because, because Ed doesn't typically come into the chat.

And so he showed up, he's here.

And the, when he was on the show, he was on the show, like a while ago.

It was a fantastic show.

And I think we need to bring him back on.

I think we should.

But there's a different reason why I wanted to highlight that when I saw you start it.

The reason Ed said hi, and Layton can attest to this, because, like, five or 10 minutes before the show started, when Ed knows I got a show that starts Thursday nights at 8:00, Ed calls me to say hi.

So I said, why don't you join the show and say hi then?

So he went into the chat and said, hi.

Got it.

I gotcha.

All right.

Yeah.

I don't have Ed's number, so, you know.

Yeah, Ed's a great brother.

Anyone who doesn't know Ed Romine, you know, you should get to know him.

So Lost.

Lost.

Not only that, great preacher, great depositor.

I see the videos he posts on Facebook.

Yeah.

Very, very edifying.

And, and if you're gonna think that, for anyone who doesn't know Ed, I still think this is the, the funniest thing was, you know, Ed used to call Matt Slick's program And, and he would call in.

And at one point, Matt finally was like, you know, listen, if you're going to keep calling in, can you, can you.

They sound like, can you not be drunk when you're doing it?

And, and had say, well, I got cerebral palsy.

It's not that I'm drunk.

My, my speech is slurred for that reason.

Like, yeah, Matt felt real bad, which is always fun.

I, if Ed can make Matt feel bad, I am all for that.

Once lost Ministry says Andrew Rapport is a great brother.

He's lying right there, even amongst disagreements.

Glad you're having this discussion.

Yeah, I'm glad you're having this discussion.

Also.

We have the same birthday, so there you go.

At least one thing that I did.

Well, I was born on the same day as him, so, so maybe that, that's why we're getting along.

So Let me bring Mr.

Flowers in.

And here's the poll.

Now, everyone, you can decide which one of us looks older.

Between Leighton and I, I think Drew does.

He got a little bit more white in his beard than me, you know.

He does.

He's also got better lighting, too, though.

Yeah, but if you look at the complexion of his skin, I mean, it doesn't quite look as wrinkled.

Well, if you compare the picture that's on your logo, Andrew, you definitely would win.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Well, what were you, 30 then?

Let's see if I.

Wait, this one here, that logo there.

It was on your logo on the screen earlier, before you brought me on.

Yeah.

So it'd probably be the one with.

Here with me in the tux, bow tie.

Yeah, that, that one's only.

Yeah, that one's only like four or five years ago.

So there you go.

I have age Covid aged me a lot.

I lost a lot of hair.

Anybody who shaves, which, by the way, I've had this beard for several years, so I'm not sure when you saw me clean shaven.

It must have been a video from a long time ago.

But, but anybody who's clean shaven, typically, especially if they have gray in their beard, will look younger.

Even my son, who doesn't have any gray, had a beard.

Yeah, that, that logo right there is what I was talking about.

That, that when he shaved his beard, he lost at least five years on him pretty quick.

Yeah.

So, Leighton, we, you know, you and I have known each other I don't know how many years now it's been.

We've always gotten along.

I know that, that, I mean, I, I, when you came out to the White Calvinist Conference.

I remember taking a picture and, and sharing it and saying, I'm with my friend Leighton.

And I had people tell me how you know friend.

How dare you call him that?

He is like, so you have.

I get the reverse.

I get the reverse.

Sometimes whenever, you know, Matt Slick or somebody that or is a well known Calvinist that I'll refer to as friend, being friends with them, I'll get people from my side like, well, he's a heretic.

Why would you be a friend with him?

All those kinds of things.

I get more comments, I get more negative comments from people who are from my side on the fact that I'm too nice to Calvinists than I do from Calvinists getting onto me now.

I get a lot of hate mail from Calvinists too, as you can imagine.

But I get even more from people who don't think Calvinists are Christians or shouldn't be considered brothers, and from people who question my views on eternal security and those kinds of things.

So I actually get more mail of those who from my side in the sense of those who disagree with me, than from the Calvinistic side, believe it or not.

So let's give for folks who may not know who you are, maybe they don't study Calvinism, Arminianism, other things along those arguments.

How about you introduce folks to yourself, give a little bit of your background so that folks know that you're not just some guy we picked up off the street to argue over Calvinism with.

Absolutely.

Well, I appreciate that opportunity.

One, I wasn't born talking about this topic.

I started this topic back close to 2015 and it was because I was going through a doctoral program where I was writing on the subject because I was a Calvinist for about a decade.

And then I ended up leaving Calvinism and I ended up writing on the topic because it was a pretty passionate topic for me because our home church had split over the issue.

I was actually a part of the group that spread split off as a Calvinist at the time.

And so it was a very deep issue for me.

And so when I began to come out of Calvinism, it was a huge impact on me, my family and the people around us.

And so I ended up doing my dissertation on this topic and was teaching a course.

And in the course the students really began to engage with this particular topic.

And one of them even suggested, hey, you should do a podcast on this.

And that kind of started.

That's why it's called Sociology 101, by the way.

It's because that was the name of the section of the course.

I wasn't expecting it to be a.

I wasn't even a YouTube page at the time.

It was just recordings that we were putting on the webinar for the class and then we just moved it over into a recording place.

And then eventually we started broadcasting on YouTube after people started suggesting that we do that.

So it just kind of developed into what it is now for those that don't know.

And I kept it separate from my ministry pages for Evangelism and Apologetics and Texas Baptist and all I was doing there because.

Because it's such a hot topic and it's intervarsity among Christians.

I didn't want it to overrun or to be interfering with my other ministry, which was much bigger at the time.

And now everybody gets the impression this is all I talk about and this is all I do.

People accuse me all the time.

One string banjo.

Matter of fact, they've even got my little one string banjo that, you know, and I've got one.

I've kind of just adopted that label because I understand if that's all you know of me.

But I was a director of evangelism for 20 years with Texas Baptist.

I recently left that ministry and began full time at Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary as the professor of theology.

And I also do this broadcast and working on some other projects on the side as well, which hopefully will come to fruition here in the near future.

So are you.

I heard.

I don't know if this is true from what you just said.

Are you.

I heard that you are now just full time with Soteriology 101 or are you still at the.

No.

Trinity College of the Bible and Theological Seminary.

So you're still there.

Okay.

This is more of a side.

Yeah.

Side thing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Someone back in February told me that and I was like, really?

Okay.

I didn't know attacking Calvinism could make it a full time career, but, you know, I thought maybe you could.

So, yeah, your background.

And there is a question that I did get.

You know, I put.

And you saw, I tagged you, you know, looking for questions.

So hopefully you saw them everywhere and got ready for them.

But.

But I grabbed some questions and one person did ask about you being an evangelist and you know that, but the only thing they know you for is, is your criticism on Calvinism.

And my response was basically if.

And you may not even remember this many years ago when we started this program and it was Matt Slick and I, you came in, you used to come in and every once in a while and there was a guy, you and Matt were tag teaming, evangelizing to an atheist that came in and I remember when that show was over, you had dropped off and at the, at the kind of was, I don't know if it was the after show or just when Matt and I were talking.

And Matt was just like, man, Leighton is such a good job sharing the gospel.

Why doesn't he do that more versus this attacking Calvinism?

You know, I've asked that of you.

Many times, many lost people in my studio.

I mean, you know, I do have training videos and articles and things I've written on the subject.

But you know, 12 people watch those, whereas 1200 people will watch a controversial topic like Calvinism.

I can't help that.

And even the provisionist perspective, they cover all sorts of topics, but they'll even remark, you know, we'll get 10% of the normal listeners when we talk about this topic or this topic or this topic, but we talk about Calvinism and the conflict there and we get, you know, our normal amount of views.

And again, that's not what motivates me to do what I do.

That's why I created the page separately, because it is such a popular topic and a controversial one among Christians.

I kept it secret, separate, so as to keep it from interfering with what I consider the more important things.

But the fact that it's popular, I can't help that.

So the fact that that's the only reason, you know me, I, I can't help that.

I mean, if you want to listen to my sermons on other topics, they're out there.

Caleb has posted them on videos and on, you know, our social media pages and they get a fraction of the views as the other stuff does.

But that's just the nature of the beast, I guess.

Yeah, you know, I, I have to admit that, and I had asked this of Andrew a while ago and then I asked it of him the other night.

You know, why is it that Calvinism is the only thing I ever hear?

And that's by the way, that's how, how I learned about you was talking about Calvinism and Andrew, Andrew told me the story about, with Matt Slick and he said, no, no, no.

He said, I've heard him evangelize and I've heard him give the gospel.

And it's, it's great.

But in fact, unless somebody knows me from the podcast and invites me to come speak on this particular topic, I rarely mention Calvinism or anything associated with Calvinism.

When I'm speaking or when I'm in my normal life with friends and other people, the only time this comes up is if somebody brings it up because they know me from the Sociology 101 podcast.

I just don't talk about this near as often as people think I do that it just happens to be a popular niche broadcast that I started, you know, what, eight years ago, and it's just grown more in popularity because it is a controversial topic.

Well, that answers kind of the other question I did have is, you know, the title of the show is Soteriology 101.

And every time I listen I go, well, how come?

Why is it so much on Calvinism rather than other aspects of soteriology?

Right.

Like why not four or five hours on justification by faith or the imputed righteousness of Christ?

You know, things like that.

But I mean, you kind of answered that, you know, and that kind of makes sense.

Well, and I have, I have just in my defense on that, even that particular point, it was with the byline created to because of my journey in and out of Calvinism.

And it was specifically addressing that niche topic.

But I've had many Armenians on who disagree with me on several points.

I've had just recently replied to how to be a Christian, the Catholic YouTuber.

And I told him, this is not my normal thing.

That's not what I normally do.

And I gave big caveats on all that.

But I did confront his view, at his request, on John chapter 6 with regard to transubstantiation and all those kinds of things that Calvinists understand John 6 to be ultimately addressing.

And so I did a video recently on that.

So I do occasionally venture into other minor topics.

Back in the COVID days, I remember talking about of those things.

And we usually tie in God's sovereignty somewhere in there when we're talking about world events and questions regarding that.

But yeah, that's really it.

And I get that comment all the time.

It's in my show notes on every video.

Does Leighton talk about anything else?

Click here.

And I don't know how else to tell people that this is a very small slice of my pie.

I wish sometimes it was only one string, it'd be easier.

But, you know, I've got quite a few strings that people just don't know about or watch not interested in for whatever reason.

And I'm going to say this, and I'm going to preface it because Leighton and I know each other well and we don't mind joking around, but I don't want anyone taking what I'm just.

What I'm about to say and take it out of context.

So you're being warned if you clip this part, you should be ashamed of yourself.

But you're just asking, looking for it now.

Drew.

Drew, did.

Did he almost have, like, a Freudian slip there when he.

He said he was.

Said he was doing this secretly is.

I mean, almost sounded like a Freudian slip there.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

Separately and secretly, the.

He was secretly doing.

And actually.

Actually there was some secrecy to it at first because, honestly, I.

I didn't want to tell people I'd left Calvinism.

I like being a part.

Y'all know what it's like.

You're at the Calvinist, you know, conference.

Why Calvin?

All the close friendships and, you know, you got all the heroes of the faith that you really admire.

Spurgeon and all these kind of guys that you would, you know, lift up as kind of heroes of the faith.

I was a part of that brotherhood.

And my best friend is Calvinistic.

My brother is semi Calvinistic.

My nephew is Calvinist.

I have a bunch of really good friends that are Calvinist.

That was my camp.

That was.

Those were my.

My friends.

And so, yeah, there was a part of me that even after I came out of Calvinism, I didn't really want to just come out with it because I didn't want to face what I knew was going to be the backlash.

And so, yeah, there was a time where it was a little bit of a secret for me, even though I'd left the world.

But the thing is that you could go to a why Calvinism Conference as a guy known for being anti Calvinistic, and everyone got along with you great.

People wanted more pictures with you, I think, than anyone else there.

I mean, you.

You know, but they were just creating.

Fun memes for themselves, I'm sure.

But yeah.

And so.

So I'm going to continue with the caveat.

Don't clip this either out of context, but did you say you.

You split a church over Calvinism?

That's how.

That's how I interpret it.

I'm just saying I was a part of this.

Yes, I was a part of the split.

Yes.

But I was on the Calvinist side of it.

And so we were at a traditional church in the sense that it was more of a whosoever will slash, you know, whatever, provisionist, whatever you want to call it, label.

And I don't want to debate over labels.

It's just labels.

But I was a part of a church that was that way.

And the pastor was very much a provisionist type of pastor.

And there had been a leader in one of the large Sunday school groups that had become a Calvinist and started teaching Calvinistic theology.

And the class and the pastor got wind of it and eventually the church started splitting.

By the time I came back from college, I was a five pointer.

And I joined in with that split along with my brother and his family.

And we ended up, long story short, but we ended up taking that group of about 12 families or whatever it was, 50 to 70 people or whatever it was, and starting a new church there in Wiley, which is still there.

Cornerstone still there.

So with that, let's, you know, I want to get into talking about provisionism, son.

That Will, I would do want to talk about, you know, but Drew, you, you mentioned about Ed being edifying and, you know, this is what Ed had said.

I'm Ed.

I'm always Ed.

Defying.

Yeah, very good, very good.

You know what?

I'm going to let him speak for himself because There he is, Mr.

Ed Romine himself.

Ed, welcome.

Thank you for pronouncing my name right.

Thank you so much.

Only because you really got upset with me when I call you Romaine.

And you'd go, that's the lettuce brother.

Oh, yeah, well, at least you don't call me Dr.

Salad like Matt does.

Well, Matt Slick has problems.

Can we all agree on that?

Hey, this is the first time that I'm not the only one without a beard on the show.

Hey, what do you know?

So.

So, Leighton, for folks who don't know you, let me ask when is the term provisionalism started?

Where did that get its history from?

I don't remember the exact time or date.

It was more of people really pushing back on the label traditionalism because that was kind of the label that we were known for in this text in the Southern Baptist world.

Because that's what that Connect 316 group was calling themselves.

Traditionalists and Calvinists, rightly so we're pushing back on that because actually the Southern Baptist originally were Calvinistic.

Now, you could argue that just because you call something traditional doesn't mean it's the way it started.

Like you could say, I'm going to the traditional worship service.

That doesn't mean it was the same as it was back in 1845.

But when the Southern Baptist Convention grew into its huge becoming the largest Protestant denomination in the world was under more of a provisionist type of theology in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and they had left well left the Calvinism of their earlier years.

And so I don't really fault the guys for calling it traditional because they're just referring to the way Southern Baptists have been for the most part.

Your grandparents theology would have been more in line with mine if you're a Southern Baptist than probably a reformed type Calvinist or a reformed Southern Baptist.

Anyway, I just didn't like the labels.

I got tired of explaining that over and over and over again and I just started saying, well you know what my view is God provides.

Nobody perishes because God didn't provide for them.

Nobody goes to hell because God didn't want them, because God picked them for that in eternity past, because Jesus didn't die for them.

Them.

God provides for everyone if they perish, they perish as Paul said, because they refuse to love the truth so as to be saved.

And so my view is God provides for every soul, not just the elect that were chosen unconditionally in eternity past.

That's what separates in my view myself from the mainline Calvinist.

And so saying God provides is just, I guess it became an Islamic after kind of referring to that word, but it, it's just kind of developed that way.

So for folks who may not be as familiar, let's, let's do this, let's start off with you explaining your view, what you refer to as provisionism.

And then, and, and you know, I'm going to argue you, I know you say you, you grew up as a Calvinist and you were a Calvinist.

I, I disagree as one.

When I was 19, I went to college and was introduced to Calvinism.

I held onto it for about 10 years.

Yeah, and I will argue that you didn't because you have the wrong definition of Calvinism.

But you're going to disagree with me.

And for folks to realize you and I will privately joke with one another and pick on each other with our differing views, we can have fun with it, but we do respect one another.

Even though I think that you don't have a proper view of Calvinism, you disagree with me, I know that.

Right.

But could you, why don't you first, actually, maybe before talking provisionism, let's, let's get into what is your view of, of Calvinism, what do you believe Calvinism is?

And then, then let's talk about what it, what provisionism is.

Yeah, no, I'm glad to do that.

Of course there's different kinds of Calvinists, all different heights and some people call three point Calvinists, five point Calvinist.

And there's different nuances of Calvinism.

Even among Calvinists, there's a lot of different disagreements.

But if I were to give the baseline, like what's the main points that really associate us with a particular group that would be considered in the Calvinistic camp or not.

There's even a broadcast by Piper where he's kind of spelling this out.

And I actually agreed with his nuances for the most part.

But I'm going to try to do the kind of the same thing.

What is the baseline thing that would make you a Calvinist?

And it's really three basic things.

One, you're born with a moral inability that means you're corrupt under the corruption of the fall of Adam.

You're born in a condition where you cannot want to receive the gospel message because of your moral condition from birth.

You're dead in your sins and trespasses.

You're separated from God.

And therefore even if God comes to you with the gospel, you will always reject it and say no because of the corruption of your heart.

Unless you were chosen unconditionally before the foundation of the world, not based upon anything that he sees that you do, even faith.

He doesn't know in advance that you're going to do something and choose you on basis of that.

He chooses you unconditionally.

And he irresistible or effectually means it can't be resisted.

It will happen.

He will call those people he chose to himself.

He will bring them to new life.

He will give them a new nature, changing their very being, their very nature.

To want to come to Jesus and to want to come to him.

That's the baseline.

Now you can get into some of the other nuances, unlimited atonement and all those kinds of things.

But I don't think that that's the major issues or even personal perseverance, all those kinds of things.

I think that's the baseline of what a Calvinist is.

If you believe you're born without the ability to believe, unless God picks you before you were born and causes you through irresistible means to believe in him through a gracious changing of the nature, changing of the heart, regeneration, then I would put you in the Calvinistic camp, generally speaking.

Okay, and then I disagree with that definition.

I've already said that.

And for folks who may be new here, who may go, you keep, you say you disagree.

Why not point it out?

Well, one of the things I do when I have a guest on is I want to let the guest explain their views.

I could do.

Really curious as to why you.

How, how and why you would disagree with what I just said, but we will.

Yeah, we could.

Fair.

Yeah, we can get to it because I want to make sure you get a chance to at least in the first hour get a chance to explain your views.

By the way, for we.

I am also quite aware of Layton's tricks.

I'll give you an example of a tree.

He's, he's, he's nervous with what I might say.

But so just picture the scene.

You have like a dozen and a half Calvinists in a room and Leighton Flowers and there's at least two or three cameras running.

And he knows that, and he knows he's the guy that's the anti Calvinist at a y Calvinist conference.

So what does he do?

He goes, let's talk dispensationalism, Andrew, and gets everybody to attack me and the two other dispensationalists in the room for like 75% of the time and then goes, okay, so you guys have any questions about me on Calvinism?

Right, So I know his tricks.

Yeah, there is video of that, Yes.

I think Greg Moore from Dead Man Walking has the video.

If you go on his, his channel, you could probably find that video.

So, yeah, so I know, I know, I know his tricks.

But explain now.

I mean, what do you believe, I mean, when you say you know, provisionism, what is your view that you would hold to.

Well, even basing off those same three points, I believe that everyone by God's design, created everyone with a conscience, everyone with the ability to make decisions and choices.

And though, yes, the Fall has a horrible end impact on humanity, we're separated from God.

And so deadness is more like the prodigal son.

He was said to be lost, but now he's found he's dead, now he's alive.

I would say, yes, we're dead in our sins and trespasses, but that's that we are separated from our Creator due to our rebellion.

Not that we can't respond to his life giving truth so as to be saved.

So I reject the concept and idea that everyone's born in a condition where they can't respond positively to the gospel appeal.

So that would be first, second, I don't believe God chooses to save people unilaterally before he even creates them.

And so I believe his choice to save is based upon them putting their trust and faith in Him.

And so I don't believe in unconditional election in that sense.

I believe that the election is like the story of the wedding banquet where he sends the Invitation to all people.

But few are elect.

And who are the elect?

Those who come in response to the invitation, clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

The wedding garments.

So the condition is not their morality or their nationality.

It's not based upon their goodness or their badness.

Like he says, go to the good and the bad alike.

And it's not based upon whether they're an Israelite or not, as was commonly misunderstood.

But it is based.

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

What do you have against us Israelites?

Well, since he was talking to them, I think that that was the only.

No offense, I'm going to be an anti Semite now.

Yeah, yeah.

Nowadays that could be.

Yeah, people are jumping on that bandwagon pretty quick.

Yeah.

So there is a condition.

It's not your morality and it's not your nationality, but it is faith in Christ that is the condition for your election.

And there's other aspects of election.

It's not just one choice.

God makes many choices in his plan of redemption.

The choice of the nation of Israel to bring His Messiah and the planet of message, the plan of redemption through them.

So there are other elections of God in redemptive history besides the choice of an individual to be saved.

But the individuals he does choose to save is conditional, not unconditional, on provisionism.

And then finally, I don't believe the grace that calls us to salvation is irresistible or effectual.

I would say that you can suppress the truth and unrighteousness, or you can accept the truth and humble yourself and receive it.

And I don't think that merits your salvation.

I don't think a gift has to be irresistibly given in order for the giver to get all the credit for giving the gift.

And so just because I don't believe it's irresistible doesn't mean I don't give God all the glory for our salvation, as sometimes we're accused of believing.

Because again, a gift doesn't have to be effectually given for God to get all the credit for giving his gifts.

In fact, he should get the credit for all the gifts he made the appeal and tried to give to people, but they refused.

I think he should get credit for those gifts as well.

So let me ask you some questions.

And we got a pile of questions piling up here, both in the stream and then ones that I'm getting on the side.

So with the way you describe some of that, let me ask this some just foundation questions.

I don't think you disagree with some of these at all.

But you believe God would Be eternal, Correct.

Sure.

And then how would you define eternality?

I guess there's always shortage of words in describing this timeless, not outside.

You can even say God can be both.

As CS Lewis talks about this and I quote him in my book about being both inside and outside of time.

And there's mysterious aspects of that.

But there is no beginning to God.

There's no end to God.

He is not material.

He is not aging like we are.

Obviously he does not have a beginning like we do.

Obviously.

And so those kinds of concepts are usually what I'm referring to when I say that God's eternal.

And I expected that.

I didn't think you were going to disagree there.

You would agree that God is omniscient, right?

Yes.

Meaning that he's all knowing.

Right.

He knows.

He knows what is going to actually happen, even though it may be future to us.

Right.

Because he's eternal and omniscient.

It's something he knows what's going to happen tomorrow.

We don't.

Correct.

And you'd agree he knows that with an absolute knowledge.

Right.

It's not like he's.

Well, I know some people.

One of the questions I think that came in was if you are, why are you not an open theist?

So we'll probably get to that.

I know that's been more, more of a.

In more recent years, a, an a assessment of you leaning that way.

So maybe we will get to that next on that at the next hour.

But I mean, you agree that God knows absolutely what's going to happen tomorrow, even though we don't know.

Right?

Correct.

Okay.

And so when you speak about God, you know, saving us before the foundation of time, things like this.

Right.

We have that, you know the Ephesians one passage, right.

God, God elected us before the foundation of the world.

Do you believe there that he's speaking chronological.

Actually says he chose us in him.

In him before the foundation of the world.

Right.

To be holy and blameless.

Yeah.

Do you believe that's a chronological thing?

That there's like that he is bound by time?

Because the way you described it, it sounds like you're saying God's, you know, is, is in Calvinism that God is choosing people before they're born chronologically.

But and so the question I guess I'm getting to is if God, if we both agree God's eternal, that there was no before anything with, you know, with him, it's all the way I explain it.

Eternal now.

Well, the Bible says before.

So I say before.

Like the Bible says It.

So do you think that God is bound by time in that sense, that he's doing something chronologically?

Well, I mean, obviously, since creation, there is a chronological order in creation and within time.

And so to say that he chose people before creation or before matter exists is a chronological thing because it is before he created.

And do you think that he could be.

Because you're saying that.

Because there's the.

Before.

You're saying it's chronological.

Could in this text.

So we're looking for folks who want to go look up the passage, right?

This is Ephesians 1.

If you look at 3 to 6, I'll just, I'll read it.

It says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love.

He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise and the glory of grace which he freely bestowed upon us, the Beloved.

So that's, that's the full text that we're referring to there.

And so when I, when I look at this, I'm seeing that what he's tying this to is the fact that we, we received every spiritual blessing, right?

And that this is something we have just as he chose us.

So we get this blessing from him just as he chose us.

The emphasis, I think, is more on not a chronological ordering as much as it is to say we had nothing to do with it.

I mean, what, what better way to say you had nothing to do with your own salvation, you had nothing to do with the spiritual blessing that you'll receive, that you had nothing to do with being holy and blameless before him than to say you're, as he says in verse 5, predestined, or in verse 4 to say this happened before the foundation of the world.

I mean, you see my point with it.

Yeah, I understand the sentiment and I understand the idea of wanting to give God all the credit for your salvation.

But unfortunately, I think that necessitates the idea that you also give God all the blame for those who don't accept him.

Because on Calvinism, God didn't really bring a provision to them or a way of salvation.

They were chosen for reprobation before they were born, and therefore they're ultimately perishing and they're ultimately being punished for something they have no meaningful control over.

Again, that's why One of the reasons I don't accept that flow, but the other reason is because I think you really miss.

Sometimes Calvinists will miss who is being chosen and for what.

You see this as the who as being those unilaterally picked before creation, somewhat seemingly arbitrary, even though I know that that word's not liked, even though Jonathan Edwards used that word, Calvin used that word.

But it comes across as very arbitrary meaning.

We have no knowledge as to why he picks one person or another.

He just.

It's a mystery hidden within the counsel of his will for his glory.

But we don't know why he picks Bob and not Bill in a given situation.

It's a mystery.

And I just don't find that that's taught in Scripture.

I think the who in Ephesians 1 is what he says.

Back up in verse 1, the faithful who are in Christ.

The in him in Christ is repeated 10 times throughout this first chapter.

And so in him is really important.

Where are you located when you're chosen?

You're in Him.

Well, unless you believe you're in him for all of eternity, which, Ephesians 2 debunks that concept because we all used to walk according to the flesh and, and as people of wrath and following Satan and our own lust and those kinds of things because of where we were before we came to be in Christ.

And verse 13 tells us it's when you hear the word of truth and you believe you're marked in Him.

So you're not marked in him in eternity past, you're marked in him when you believe.

Now, to get back to the verse and it says he chose us in Him.

What I believe that means is he chose us.

Who's us?

The faith faithful in Christ.

So us in him is referring to the faithful in Christ and he chose us for what?

For salvation?

No, it says he chose us, the faithful in Christ, believers to be made holy and blameless.

That means he's chosen.

He's predestined for those who are in Christ to be made like His Son, which is the other time.

The word predestination is used by Paul over in Romans 8.

So he's predestinating believers to be made holy and blameless, whether Jew or Gentile.

And this is why he says it's before the foundation of the world, just like he says in Ephesians chapter three, where he talks about this has been God's plan from the beginning.

This is not a new plan.

And that's what I think he's combating when he says he chose the faithful in Christ before the foundation of the world to be made like Christ, to be made holy and blameless, to be adopted.

And that's something we are waiting for a future hope that we have for adoption in the future.

And that's why we know we are predestined for adoption.

Because if you put your faith in Christ, you know God is destined beforehand that you will be made holy and blameless and you will be taking up residence with him as an adopted son or daughter.

So, so are you.

You're moving adoption to a future state, correct?

Well, I'm, I'm not.

Paul does.

Okay, because that was going to be.

One of my questions is how, in what you said regarding verse four, how do you square being predestined unto adoption?

Because adoption is a specific aspect of salvation.

Right?

Yeah.

Well, Romans 8:23, Paul says, we eagerly await for our adoption the redemption of our bodies.

And so there isn't already.

Not yet.

Like when you go and fill out the paperwork to adopt a child, sure, legally you've adopted them, but they're not filled fully adopted until they come home with you and take up residence in the place you prepared in advance for them.

And so our adoption is not completed until glorification.

But I'm predestined to glorification because I'm in Christ, not because he picked me unilaterally before I was born.

So it doesn't say you're predestined to be a believer.

It says believers are predestined to be made holy and blameless.

And this is a choice that God made from the beginning.

This has always been his plan.

It's not a new plan.

Jew, gentile, whoever you are, if you're in Christ, God is destined beforehand.

This is what's going to happen to you.

So I mean, is.

Did God know?

I mean, if God is all knowing, did he know?

You know, given what we've just went over, before he created the world, who would be saved and who wouldn't be saved?

Yeah, I don't think the Bible addresses that specifically.

So that gets into the philosophical, the.

This is where the debate between Molanists, the Boethian view of the eternal now view of God.

The determinists, usually Calvinists, fall into the theistic determinist camp.

Philosophically, they're all.

And open theists or dynamic perspectives, because open theists aren't monolithic either.

There are differing perspectives among them as well.

And I'm friends with all of those in all of those different camps.

And I disagree with obviously the determinist, I disagree with the open theist.

I land usually where C.S.

lewis lands, which is more of the concept and idea that God being outside of time can fathom these mysteries of his knowledge.

I like John Lennox's answer to this question.

I don't know how he created something from nothing, but I believe that he created something from nothing.

So it's a difference between how and that and the same thing.

I, I don't know how he knows what I'm going to eat tomorrow because I don't even know for sure what I'm going to eat tomorrow.

But I believe that he does.

How does God know the future free choices of his creation?

I don't know, but I believe that he does.

I don't believe he has to determine it in order to know it.

And I think that's where the mistake of the determinist is that ultimately they've got God knowing that which he causes or he determines in eternity past.

And I don't think the knowledge is causal.

I think he knows what we will freely do and that's beyond full comprehension.

And I believe he has the ability to bring about his plans and purposes through his knowledge and his sovereign working to bring about circumstances and things in order to bring about his purpose and his plan ultimately.

And yes, there's still mystery there.

Just like Calvinists have certain appeals to mystery, so do provisionists or open theist or molinist or any of the other groups.

I don't self proclaim as a molinist because I'm not a philosopher by trade and if I did that I would have to defend the system.

And I'm not smart enough to do it to be honest.

But I do resonate a lot with what men like Braxton Hunter, Eric Hernandez, who's been on the show, William Lane Craig obviously is kind of the big name of the mullinist group.

That's philosophical priming.

And so I know philosophically you can get in those kinds of discussions about the knowledge of God.

And I understand there are a lot of different ways in which to answer that question.

So I know where the question's coming from is if God knows something prior to creating it, isn't that the same as determinism?

And I just don't believe that it is.

I don't think it's necessary.

And even most philosophers who are Christians agree with me on that particular point.

Well, you'll have to let Eric know there is no way to defend Mullenism.

You know, when you see him, I know you Work with him.

And the joke behind that is I'll.

Make sure he knows.

Make sure he knows that and tell him that's the reason he's.

He's.

Tell him he's avoiding to debate me.

But it's, it's not.

We're.

We are, we're trying to set up a debate.

Eric and I brought him along.

Yeah, yeah, we, you know, every date we've given, it hasn't worked out.

We have tried, but we'll get, we'll get that together.

You can save your philosophical questions for Eric.

You'll be able to so handle those a lot better than I can.

And I don't want to.

Yeah, I don't want to do a whole show on Ephesians 1 because we had more.

You had more.

You want to go on with.

Because, folks, if you don't realize, and this is a joke.

Leighton will not be offended by this because I've made this to him often.

But I could say something in five minutes and Leighton will do a three hour response.

So I come into this known and a long time.

That's because you haven't responded to me in a long time.

No, the.

But the reality is Leighton is a little bit more verbose than, than most pastors.

I'm long winded.

I know, I know.

So I, I expected we weren't going to get through lots of questions and that.

That's fine.

We can always have you come back on and we could do a two hour response show to everything that you've said or, you know, or do two shows in response.

But I did find it interesting though, just to see that you tied the idea of before the foundation of the world to the holy and blameless, which is, you know, the language here is that's the result of this.

And you didn't tie it to the every spiritual blessing, which I think is.

Oh, I agree.

Yeah.

No.

Before the foundation of the world, God chose for all who are in Christ by faith.

He's the Chosen one.

He's the Eternal One.

We didn't exist before the foundation of the world.

Christ did.

He's the chosen One.

We're only chosen insofar as we're in Christ.

And this is a choice he made before the foundation of the world for all who are in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, to be made holy and blameless and to have all these other spiritual blessings that are listed there.

That's why God has chosen for those who are in Christ.

So, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pass on the next Question.

Because I won't get on to other things.

But Drew, it looked like you had one more question.

I mean, I think it, I think it's going to fall under what Dr.

Flowers was talking about, the philosophical area and how I was, how I'm kind of viewing or setting up.

My initial question was it looks like when God is knowing his, his knowledge of understanding before the foundation of the world, who would be saved?

Who wouldn't it?

Or you know what, he knows that it would fall really in two categories.

Either he has decreed it or he is taking in knowledge and learning about, about what's going to happen.

Because I mean, if we, if God is omniscient, then he is omniscient from beginning to end.

Yeah, but what is he knowing at all things?

I know, but is he knowing what you will freely choose to do or is he knowing what he's decreed for you to do?

I mean, so he know I can only do what God has decreed right in my life.

Right?

So, but there's only differ.

See, we think he knows what you're going to freely do.

And you, you think he knows what he's determined for you to do.

So there's.

So especially when we start talking about the idea of Calvinism and predestination and election, I would view it more as dealing with salvation, right?

Whereas I hear others say, oh well, you know, God determined I was going to wear this shirt.

Well, the shirt is irrelevant because the shirt doesn't have any eternal effect on my soul.

Whereas me being a depraved sinner, having my heart changed by God and drawn by God in order to believe, and he brings me to repentance and faith, right?

That has an eternal effect on my soul.

That's something that in my dead heart I cannot choose on my own.

I have to have a new heart, right?

Because if I can believe with my old heart, I have no need for a new heart.

So no disagree.

Yeah.

No, you can admit that you're sick and have a corrupt heart so as to get the surgeon to give you a new heart so you don't have to get a new heart to confess that your heart's already been made alive.

It's just backwards.

Ezekiel 18 even says, Rid yourself of the sins and get yourselves a new heart.

Why do you die, O house of Israel, Repent and live.

So the repentance is the belief, faith, repentance and faith is what gives you new life.

It's what John said.

I've written these things that you may believe and that by Believing you may have life, it's by believing that you have life.

It's by believing that your heart is renewed, it's by confessing your heart is corrupt that you're given a new heart.

God doesn't slip in, give you a new heart so that you can confess that, well, your heart's actually new now and it's not corrupt anymore.

And we all know that.

We still struggle with sin as Christians.

And so if you're still struggling with sins, especially early as a baby in Christ, you're struggling a lot more with sin at that time because you're still.

Your heart is still dealing with its corrupt self and the addictions and habits that you formed over that time.

And so we're not given a new heart in order to confess.

We confess in order to get a new heart.

So one more question, Andrew, and then I promise I'll turn it over back to you.

He's so kind.

He's going to turn.

He's going to turn it back over to me on my show.

Hey, I'm a co host and you brought me on this show.

So how does provisionism differentiate itself from Pelagianism or semi Pelagianism?

Well, if anybody has watched the show, you'll learn we really think the concept of Pelagianism is a myth that was invented by Augustine and his accusations, all of which 1/5 of one of the points of the 24 points that Plagius even acknowledges something he agreed with.

And so even Pelagius wasn't a Pelagian.

Now, I've heard people like James White say that doesn't really matter.

What matters is that this is the view that's known for these things.

And I've had many broadcasts explaining the things that plagiarism are known for today are all things that provisionists deny.

Now, there may be some things that are similar to some of the things that Pelagian or some of the followers of Pelagius taught.

Just like there's some similar things between what you may believe and what a Hyper Calvinist like the Westboro Baptists believe.

Doesn't mean that you're one of them.

It just means that you might interpret Romans 9, for example, similarly to one of their leaders or something like that.

And so we've got to be careful with the guilt by association name calling.

It's the boogeyman fallacy stuff.

That guy sounds like Hitler.

He said something Hitler said.

Once we see that in the political world, we see it in the theological world, and I think it's a Lazy man's approach to having good discussions.

Because calling somebody something that never really existed, at least in my estimation, and I have proof why I think that in those broadcasts, podcast and articles that we've produced and that would take a long time and I'm already verbose enough so I'll stop with that.

Would that be, would that almost be like calling all Calvinists determinists when we don't believe in determinism?

Correct.

Yeah.

That's why I don't say all Calvinist are determinist.

You just use the word determinism to refer to Calvinism a lot.

When I'm talking to, when I'm talking to a John Piper kind of Calvinist who is by his own admission a theistic determinist.

Or Bingyong or Chris Date or James White.

James White is a super lapsarian theistic determinist.

Now he's changed that to decretalist.

He doesn't like the title anymore of determinist even though he touted Bingyong's book, who is a self proclaimed theistic determinist.

So Calvin was a theistic determinist.

Philosophically now it doesn't mean everybody has to follow Calvin's philosophy.

But when I'm attacking Calvinism qua Calvinism as the namesake promoted it and the leading, probably leading voice of Calvinist today and John Piper, I'm attacking a philosophical view of theistic determinism or attacking it, you know, I'm challenging it, I don't agree with it.

And I'm either doing that freely or I'm doing it because God determined me to.

Which is not just to be a joke.

It is actually just a truism of the deterministic worldview.

So let me ask this and I'm going to tie it into a different question.

You know, one of the issues that I've talked over with Eric Hernandez when we talk Molinism, right, We've, he's been on the show, we've discussed that he is arguing against Calvinism, against what he thinks is determinism.

But he, Mollenism has the, I think a similar problem to one I think you run into with the ideas in Molinism.

For folks who don't know, it's the idea that God had all these possible worlds that he knew could, could be based on human free will.

Everyone's making their own free choices and he's looking at all the possible worlds.

Then he selects one.

And once he selects one, the question I had asked Eric is, and this was a question that Saitem Bruncate had on X for you.

It's a similar question I had for Eric is once we're in this world that God has selected in there I asked him if we can do anything other than what we had the will to do in that world.

And he ended up saying no, which actually makes him more determinist than I would be.

So the question that Psy asked is are you free to do other than what God knows for certain you will do?

So it's the same, the same thinking.

So you believe God knows what you're going to do tomorrow?

Right.

Again, we're getting back into the philosophy of things and I think Eric is more equipped to handle those things.

But I have no problem.

The way William Lane Craig has answered that is there's sometimes a conflation between certainty and necessity.

I have no problem saying that we can't do other than what he knows for certain, but that doesn't mean we're necessitated by the one who knows it.

In other words, he knows what we're going to libertarianly freely choose to do.

How he knows that is, I don't know that any more so than how I know how he created something from nothing.

I appeal to mystery as to how God, where God bases his ability to know what I will freely choose to do.

But I still maintain it is my liberty, authoritarianly free choice.

And so it is certain that I will do what he knows I will do.

But it's not because it's determined for me to do it, I.

E.

Decretalism, I.

E.

The sovereign decree is ultimately what determined what I will do is that he knows what I will choose to do.

And so that's again, that's what all the philosophers get into.

There's been tomes written on the subject and I'll recommend people to go the philosophers to read through the tomes.

I'm a theologian by trade and I don't think the Bible specifically answers that question.

I do think that the Bible prevents or discludes some of the claims of the Calvinist reading of the verses in question.

And that's where I usually contend with Calvinists is on the reading of the text, not on the philosophical objections.

Okay, I want to go a different angle and then come back to this because I think there's.

It might be an easier way to answer this.

So let's talk inspiration of Scripture.

So we're going to jettison soteriology, go to somewhere else.

And I'm doing this because I want to first build some common ground.

Sure.

We have the book of Ephesians.

If I was to ask you who wrote Ephesians, what would your answer be?

Paul, by the inspiration of the Spirit.

Okay.

Most people say Paul and then I say, are you sure?

And then they say the God.

Right.

I've heard the video of MacArthur.

Yeah.

So, okay, when we say, you know, by inspiration, you know, a term that we'd often use is superintending.

Are you familiar with that?

That term in.

Right.

Yes.

Do you only ask, you make sure.

Instead of me giving a definition.

Let me see if your definition, what it would be your definition of.

When you say, you know, through the inspiration, what's your definite inspiration?

What's your definition of.

Oh, did someone.

Oh, Drew dropped that.

I saw someone pop out.

Sorry.

Unexpectedly dropped.

He comes back in.

So what's your definition of inspiration and what's your definition of superintending?

I would have to study up on what you're talking about with superintending, but with inspiration, God breathed.

I think God is bringing about the testimony of the men who wrote in Scripture.

I do think.

And I could get in trouble for this by some camps, I know.

But I think that just like Peter is flawed, there can be flaws in the manuscripts that we have.

There's obviously flaws in the manuscripts that we have.

Usually the inerrancy question is about the autographs that we don't have.

But nobody debates.

Even the most conservative of folks tries to say that we don't have any scribal errors or anything of that sort.

But I have no problem calling Scripture God breathed.

It's from God and it's to point us to Him.

It's not to be worshiped itself.

That's probably one of the reasons that he chose men that have flaws like Peter and Paul and others.

And he chose the means by which to communicate with himself through flawed means, like the non autographed versions of an inspired text.

Because otherwise bibliology, which still happens, people venerate the pages of the scrolls instead of pointing to the one that they are to testify to.

But I do believe they're from God.

Now, with the superintending, I'm assuming you would tell me what you're thinking about this, but superintending meaning more of a governance of God over all things and working together that which he desires to come to pass with regard to the communication of his truth.

Yeah, and I'm going to clarify, just I don't want anyone to misunderstand and then misrepresent what you said there.

So we acknowledge that we don't know that we have any autographs, original writings from say, Ephesians, Paul's original letter of Ephesians.

We don't know that we have that.

I say we don't know because it could be cataloged somewhere.

There are certain things.

If it has verses, we know it's not original because the originals didn't have verses.

Right.

Same with punctuation, things like that.

But the.

Those that were copies of copies of copies of copies.

That's when Leighton is saying that they can have scribal mistakes and errors in them.

That is what he is referring to, not the original writings.

So I just want to be clear with that so that no one thinks he said that the Bible has got errors in it.

So it's just when pill made.

But I'll say this, and again, it may get me in trouble.

But we don't have the autographs.

We can't know for certain even if we found an autograph of Paul letter and we found an error in it somehow.

And again, I don't know how you define what an error is, but we found something he misspelled or something like that.

Even if it's a minor error like that or he gave a wrong date or reference to something, it would not shock my faith.

It would not hurt my faith whatsoever.

Because my faith is not in the Scripture, just like it's not in Peter or Mary, okay?

It's in the one in which that scripture testifies.

And so the, the being God breathed or from God doesn't require, in my estimation, this concept of some inerrant text that exists out there or not, or it's been destroyed and it's not really there.

I think there's a lot of time wasted and a lot of effort spent on something that makes no difference to the faith of those who believe and trust in Christ and have the indwelling spirit.

That's just my opinion on it.

Again, some ultra conservatives may rake me over the coals for that, but that's just where I stand on it.

See, we're talking about something else besides Calvinism here.

Get me in trouble.

Yeah, well, so the idea of the superintending is the point of it being that we both agree Paul wrote Ephesians and yet we both agree that God wrote it.

Who gets the credit?

I mean, could Paul have written Ephesians on his own?

I don't think we could breathe on our own.

He sustains our life and every breath and everything about who we are.

So it depends on what you mean by doing something on their own.

But No, I don't think that Paul could have done what he did on his own.

And I certainly don't think he would have been able to have the knowledge and wisdom and understanding that's reflected in his letters apart from the indwelling of the spirit.

Ephesians 3 gets into this.

He even says, jesus revealed these things to me so that I could write about them, and that by reading it, you can understand it too.

So that's how we understand what the Spirit is revealing by reading the words.

He's inspired through the prophets and the apostles.

And so it's obviously something he got as a gift of grace by God to give him those words.

Okay, so.

But he would not.

You agree, he would not be able to write God's Word without God working through him to do that, right?

Of course.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And so.

And that's really the doctrine of superintending, right?

That God works through the human author.

So that even though they.

They selected their words, right?

I mean, you can.

Anyone reading and studying the Scriptures can see that Paul's style is very different than, say, John's style.

I mean, it's a clear difference.

Paul is point upon point upon point.

John has a style where he's kind of like circular.

He just keeps circling around a couple of ideas and comes back to him and back to him, you know, so their styles are different.

They write things that are personal.

Paul's going to say, hey, bring my cloak, it's going to be cold this winter.

Right?

There's personal things of personal choices of the words.

And yet we see that it's God's word, that God.

That every dot and tittle, you know, every letter and dot of the I is exactly as God intended it to be.

That's what we mean by inspired, Right.

God's spoken.

And so the idea of superintending would be that God works through the human author, that even though Paul writes and chooses his words, it's exactly as God intended it to be.

Would you agree with that?

I don't think that.

I mean, no, not necessarily.

And that's that.

I mean everything that happens in the world according to the theistic determinist, whether that's you or not.

I'm not saying everything is as God intended it.

And I think that our world has errors and has problems, but yet God's message is made abundantly clear to be sufficient to do what it's meant to do.

And so I don't need every jot and tittle to be perfect in order to believe that the Bible is doing what it's meant to do and accomplishing the purpose for which God sent it.

That's just, again, my perspective.

Perspective on that.

Yeah, but I mean, just let's limit it right now for inspiration, just for this argument, because I want to build on this.

But with the writing of Scripture, could you agree that what Paul wrote was God working through him to write that, so that though he chose words, we call it God's word because it may be Paul choosing the words, but God is working through him in that choice so that every word is exactly as God wants it to be.

Can you agree to that?

Yeah.

The concepts and ideas that he's communicating through his servants are true, accurate, profitable for rebuke, correcting and training in righteousness.

And so all the things that the Bible says about itself, I would confirm.

And I prefer to use the biblical terms than the ones that are been made up since then, because oftentimes those words that man makes up, like inherent inerrant, get used as battle axes to beat each Christians over the head and form new groups.

Okay, but I'm not using it as a battle.

No, no, I'm not saying that to you.

I'm just saying, generally speaking, that that has become a battle that in my estimation, never needed to happen among believers.

I mean, look, you know, you.

Before we went on, we were joking about, you know, my message at the why Calvinism Conference.

When I did, part of my message was the Calvinism of Arminius.

And we talked about Arminius's history and how you have people because they're fighting it.

They're.

I don't want.

Maybe fighting is not a good word because they're contending over a view.

They tend to, though, where, you know, you could have, you know, Arminius and I just forgot his name again.

Calvin's Beza.

Sorry.

You know, Arminius and Beza may not have been too far off at the beginning of their battles, but as they kept battling, they kept pulling further and further apart.

And, you know, I think that they were far closer in the early years of Arminius's ministry.

And for folks who don't, I mean, you can go on, if you go on, just search for history of Calvinism, Andrew Rapport.

You could probably find the video or you'll find my podcast where I played that and you can hear the whole thing.

But the reality is that both of those men, there was never a debate really between Calvin and Arminius because Arminius was four years old when Calvin died.

Yeah, I mean, there Was no, you know, Armenia pretty good to be debating as a four year old.

I'm just saying.

But the, the issue is that I, and I think Leighton.

And, and I think, you know, I, I don't mean this in disrespect, but it's, it's my evaluation you've been fighting against Calvinism so long that you're, you're always attacking that.

And, and what you, what you see as determinism, which I don't think is what Calvinism is.

And, and because of that, whenever we get in discussions, it's like you're always going against that instead of what we're, we're discussing.

Right.

So I want, I'm trying to find middle ground here to see, to help you to, to see where I think most Calvinists are at so that it's when.

Because this, so this is all kind of a rabbit trail now.

But you know, I, my, and I think I've shared this with you privately.

But you know, my, my, I guess greatest concern with Soteriology 101, you know, really it's, it's because what it does is there's so many people that are going after Calvinism when they don't understand it.

Right.

That it becomes, it becomes crossing the division where everyone's just separating so much that we can't realize.

Wait there like where do we end up agreeing?

Because I often find that people that hate Calvinism actually would agree with Calvinism.

They just disagree with their definitions of it.

That's why I'm going to this because.

You know, starting to respond to that charge.

Yeah, so far.

Because if I don't let you do it now, you're going to do it for four hours on a show.

Too shy.

Too shy.

That's possible.

One you, you keep using superlatives like always, these kinds of things.

Oh, okay.

One, forgive me.

I have acknowledged there are some libertarian people who affirm libertarian freedom, like Greg Koukl Crisp.

There's, I think the other one I had, J.I.

packer.

There's several other non theistic determinist Calvinists out there that I've confronted on the show, that we've talked through on the show.

I cannot tell you how many times I've said Calvinism is not a monolithic group.

I'm responding to different types of Calvinists in different programs.

And if you've only seen one or two here or there and you've only seen me interact with James White especially, who happens to be a super lapsarian, theistic determinist, decretalist whatever he wants to be called, John Piper, which is the most popular form of the Calvinism that we know today.

Then you're hearing me contend with that particular type of Calvinist.

And so I can't be responsible for which programs you've seen and haven't seen.

I can send you the links to the ones where I've confronted and talked with people.

You had Guy on Live had the same critique.

You keep treating us like we're all determinist.

And I'm just like, well, actually I have this show and this show and this show where I differentiate that that just happens to be the most popular form of Calvinism.

And so that's, that's what I'm, I'm seeking to confront.

Now, as far as moving my position, I can't think of a single doctrine or theology that I hold to differently than when I started this in 2015.

Now maybe those things have become more in tune or more precise, certain points of it or whatever, but I don't think I've drifted any further to one side or another.

I still don't.

I don't.

You know, White keeps saying it's just a matter of time before he becomes an open theist.

I've not ever affirmed open theism.

And yet people call me open theist all the time because, you know, I have friends on that are open theist.

And so they just assume I must be one or becoming one or other.

You know, there's others that, oh, all the Armenians become liberals and all these kinds of things.

Oh, well, there's a lot of Calvinistic groups that become liberal too.

That's just those kinds of arguments don't.

Just don't hold any water with me.

And so I'm just pushing back.

And on the definition thing, I would love for you to tell me that that opening segment there, when I gave those three major points of what a base level Calvinist would hold to, I don't think you've told us which one of those you disagreed with and why.

Well, sure, and I think when I'm saying this, I'm talking about the superintending inspiration and you're responding to determinism when the topic was inspiration.

Well, you asked me if it was as God intended it.

And I was just pointing out that on your view, or at least on the swath or the normal Calvinistic, Calvinistic perspective of Calvin, everything is as God intended to be.

And that's just a fact of the matter.

And so I was pointing out a difference between what you're holding to.

And what I'm holding to with regard to that question.

And so someone who has a different worldview about how God works in a fallen world, who prays, let your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

Because we don't believe it's always being done here on earth as in heaven on our view.

Calvinists do typically.

And so when you ask about if, if the original language or the original autographs were as God intended, I don't have any problem with saying there could have been a spelling error or this, that or the other, or jot or tittle that wasn't crossed or whatever.

I have no problem saying that that could have happened.

It wouldn't shake my faith whatsoever.

Because God.

It's not always as God intended on my view, where it is on your view, typically.

And so that's.

I'm not trying to make it about California Calvinism.

I'm trying to make it more about our view of God and how he works within time and space.

Yeah, see, and I would disagree that the majority of Calvinists are determinist.

Let me find.

There was someone that asked the question.

We got more questions popping up on this, so it's harder to find.

Okay, here we go.

Jordan had asked, can they explain how Calvinism differs from determinism?

And so this, this may be to answer this question is a way for me to explain where I differ from what, how you define Calvinism.

So determinism would be that God determines everything.

In other words, he forces us.

We have no choice.

We don't have a free will.

So if I was to smack Layton across the face, I wouldn't, but if I did, it's because God made me do it.

That would be determinism, that God is not just orchestrating, intending, but actually determining everything.

And I.

Let me defend.

Let me defend the determinist.

Bingyong and Date, they would not affirm what you just said.

That is what determinism is.

They would be more in the compatibilistic camp that God, which, by the way, compatibilism is just as deterministic as hard determinism.

What compatibilism is saying is that determinism, theistic determinism is compatible with man's responsibility.

So men are culpable even though God is ultimately determining what they do.

And they appeal to mystery as to how that is.

At least Calvin does.

And many leading philosophical Calvinists do have to appeal to mystery on why we're held accountable or how it is that we are justly held culpable.

For what God ultimately determines to do.

But he does this through secondary causes and contingencies and all those kinds of things.

I think there's some inconsistencies with compatibilism for reasons I explain more broadly on my show.

But I don't think any theistic determinist out there would say God's forcing you to stab some.

Somebody or kill them or something like that in that manner.

In fact, it would be in the compatibilistic side is you would be doing.

You're free to do what you want to do.

So you would be wanting to slap me.

But the reason you want to slap me ultimately is because God has determined, decreed the circumstances and your nature such that you would never choose to do otherwise.

And so that is classical theistic determinism, otherwise known as compatibilism, for the most part.

Now there are hard determinists who typically, you know, in like in the atheistic world, especially naturalistic determinists.

And so if that's what you have in mind, then obviously Chris Date Binyang, other theistic determinists would wholly reject that because they believe in a personal God who has decreed the things that come to pass.

But nevertheless, I don't know that we need to get.

Again, we're going down the philosophical trying.

Well, we are, we are.

But I mean, and this is why I, I go to the idea superintending with inspiration because I think it's usually where I could find common ground with folks, because there, what you have is.

You have Paul choosing his words, though he is not God isn't.

I don't.

You know, we don't believe that in dictation that God is forcing.

It's not God determining like he's saying, you know, this is the.

You'll write this, this, this, this.

You can see they have different styles, they have different word choices.

You could see, you can see the education from a Paul versus a Peter.

I'm following what you're.

It's the same point that MacArthur was making that video when he asked who wrote the book of Ephesians.

And I have a video out on the book.

I'm not sure.

I don't think I've seen the video you're referring to.

Just so if you're.

Todd Friel does the same thing where you ask who wrote this?

Who wrote this?

And they're using the inspiration of Scripture as kind of their model for how God brings about salvation or brings about things.

But yet men are still ultimately doing those things.

And my point is we do believe God determines some things.

The inspiration of Scripture would be an example of that.

So if you make it to where God's bringing about all things like the confessions of Calvin to say, then that undermines things like the Scripture or the crucifixion, because we do believe God is intervening within time and space to bring about the crucifixion for the redemption of men.

And we do believe he's intervening to bring about the inspiration of Scripture.

But what about my book?

Was it inspired by God?

Was it brought about by inspiration?

Everyone would say, no, obviously not.

But yet on theistic determinism, not necessarily your view, but on theistic determination determinism, God determined, decreed whatsoever comes to pass, which includes my book and every jot and tittle that I wrote in here.

It's exactly written as God intended it to be written.

So I think that undermines the inspiration of Scripture if one holds to a truly theistic, deterministic perspective of God determining whatsoever comes to pass.

And I would.

And that's where I say that.

I think where you say that's the majority of Calvinists.

I don't think that is.

And I think that's where a majority.

If it's Calvin's view and Piper's view, then even if I'm just confronting those two men and them alone following Edwards, then you can.

The best you can do is accuse me of attacking the wrong kind of Calvinist.

But even then, I have the JI Packer video, I've got the Greg Coco video, and even guests that have come on that are affirming of libertarian free will while still holding to a Calvinistic sociology.

So even though they're, in my opinion, based upon the statistics that I see, they're a lot less popular, at least in the mainstream, than the theistic determinists like that follow Edwards, as does Piper.

But I mean, that.

That's the best accusation you could bring is just that you're not confronting my kind of Calvinist and.

Well, no, right now.

Well, we're having a discussion right now.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm confronting a non theistic determinist Calvinist.

Yeah.

So I just looked at time.

This, this is the thing.

You and I get into discussions, get into rabbit trails, and time goes quickly, you know, so much, so little time.

Notice, folks, I didn't use Matt's line.

So much heresy, so little time.

But let me do this really quickly, because if I don't, time's gonna run out on us.

Let me just say.

Look, folks, I know this is lively.

I know some of it's getting late for some folks.

And maybe I think what Leighton Pry needs because, you know, he looks like an old man, he's getting tired.

He probably needs a good cup of coffee to continue this conversation.

And what he should get is a good cup of Squirrely Joe's coffee, which I think he might have had if he had coffee at the conference there in February at the White Calvinism conference.

I'm a coffee snob too, and I liked his coffee.

He's got some good coffee.

So what you should do is you should go to strivingforternity.org coffee and get yourself a good cup of coffee.

Actually, my, my daughter was in town and one of the things she.

She was staying over and one of the things she said is, do you have that Squirrely Joe's coffee?

I said, of course I do.

And so she was very happy to be.

Well, we went through an entire bag of coffee.

I think something happened.

I went through coffee a lot faster than I usually do in the house.

So they are a sponsor here.

If you want to get yourself a great cup of coffee, remember, if it is your first order, you know, be a good Jewish person like myself and make it your biggest order.

That way you get saved the most.

You get 20 off the first order.

I regret my first order not being five pound bags.

I should have done that.

But get yourself a good order of coffee if you want for your church.

Hey, get some Scrolly Joe's coffee coffee for the church there.

It's great cups, great coffee from.

He gets the beans from different places, so there's a lot of different flavors to it that you can have.

So if you are a coffee snob like Layton is, you can figure out which one do you like.

Do you like the Brazilian beans or the echo, the ones I think he's got from Ecuador?

You know, you figure out which.

Which flavor you like.

There's a lot of different ones.

And you can determine whether, you know, he's got cool names for his coffee like a bag of kindness or honesty.

You can decide whether when you're drinking honesty, it's because you already have honesty or need honesty.

I'm just gonna say you could decide whether it's you need it or you already have these different characteristics.

But if you want to get yourself some coffee, go to get to from Squirrely Joe's.

Go to strivingforatturney.org Coffee and do us a favor, when you reorder, go to that same link so that he knows that you heard about him from us.

So that he will continue to sponsor us here on the show.

Now, for others, when hearing Leighton, I understand that you may want to go to sleep.

And so for that, we have a solution as well.

You can get yourself a good my pillow.

And that will put you.

So at least listening to Leighton's nice tone of voice as you.

As he continues to speak.

And you go into La La Land and you're getting ready to sleep a good night's sleep, at least do it with a good MyPillow.

And the way to do that is go to MyPillow.com and use the promo code SFE that promo code will let them know it's the same promo code as with MyPillow.

Use the promo code SFE.

It lets them know that you heard about them from us so that they'll continue sponsoring us.

And in this case, it will help you not just with Leighton's voice, but a good pillow to put you to sleep for the night.

I mean, I like to listen to Leighton's voice to fall asleep, but no.

Glad to help you.

Yeah, I do have.

There is a listener, and if she's listening, she'll get a good kick.

But there's a listener.

She had called the ministry and let me know that she has to listen all night long to either Matt Slick or myself.

And she's got our podcast going in a loop.

And I said, oh, that's so sweet, like.

But I mean, you're not really listening because you're sleeping.

She goes, oh, it's not for me.

My dog won't stay quiet unless she's listening to one of your two voices.

She's like, my dog will bark all night unless she's listening to you or Matt Slick.

I'm like, gee, I don't know if that's a good thing anymore.

I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not.

But, hey, thanks for the downloads, I guess.

Absolutely.

So, yeah, as we were discussing before, the idea that I have is that God can work through the writers of scripture in such a way that they do have a choice.

When we talk free will, I don't see.

Well, let me ask it this way.

When we talk about the will, Drew is backstage calling, saying, andrew is the dog whisperer.

He's saying that in the private chat.

So when I talk about free will, I would argue that until we know Christ, we don't have a free will.

We have a will.

We have a will that's enslaved to sin.

Right.

So I agree with that.

Okay.

So when we talk about when we talk about the curse of sin, I mean, so do you believe that our intellect was affected by the fall?

Sure.

Okay.

Our emotions as well?

Sure.

And then so our will or volition was that affected as well.

Would you?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So, so when, when I talk, I, I, and I'm just trying to be a little bit more precise with it because a free will means we are free to choose, you know, apart from any, like when we have a sin nature, we are going to be that that choice is affected by the curse of sin.

As you know, Romans would say chapter five, chapter six, I'm forgetting which one right now, that we're slaves to sin prior to Christ, Holy Spirit indwelling us.

Now I would say we have a free will.

So I would say we have a will.

And I think that will Paul can write something and you're seeing his will in action, you're seeing his choice of words, but God can work through that, that's not forcing it.

And so yeah, again I understand that Calvinists don't like the term like putting a gun to the head or taking you physically forcing you to do something.

But what the compatibilists will usually argue is that you're free as long as you're doing what you want to do.

You're acting in accordance with your own desire.

But what's behind the scenes of that, at least the things that Calvinists don't often talk about, is the reason why you want those things.

And you either want to reject God because that's the way you were born in your corrupt nature, or because God rebirthed you through a unilateral work of divine grace, causing you to want to.

So he changes your desires, so he's in control of the desire you're born with, and he's also in control of the desire you have at new birth.

So the desire you have after your first birth is just as much under the control of the sovereign decree of God as the desire you have under the second birth.

And so God is determining the circumstances and the desires of your heart, thus determining which choice you make freely in the sense that you're making it according to your desires.

That is the heart of compatibilism as I understand it and as we've played it from videos of compatible teaching that view.

So it's not physical force, it is a concept of changing one's desires and the circumstances so as to ensure what God has decreed to happen will come to pass.

That is what's behind theistic determinism, I.e.

calvinistic compatibilism now and again.

I don't think that the Bible teaches that.

I think that the Bible teaches that we're born with a conscience and ability to choose right and wrong.

We can grow hardened.

We can trade the truth of God in for lies.

He won't contend with men forever.

So eventually our consciences can become seared, we can be cut off, and even in judgment, God can harden our hearts in order to accomplish purpose through our rebellion and our horrible behaviors.

God can bring about a purpose through our evil choices.

And so I don't believe this concept that you're born in a condition where you can't respond positively to the things of God.

One of the reasons that most people who can become Christians do so before their 18th birthday.

Why?

Because children are humble and moldable, whereas adults don't tend to be that way.

They tend to be stuck in the mud and old wine skins that can't take the new wine, so to speak, because they already have their system of thought and their way of thinking.

And young people tend to be more moldable and willing to listen and willing to learn.

And so sin corrupts you.

The more you live in it, the more you ignore the voice of God, the more you become hardened.

So you're not born already hardened.

You can become that way.

And so the warnings in scripture are often to people who've already become the old wineskins.

A lot of the verses that are used as proof texts by Calvinists for the nature of man are actually about the nature of hardened men, about those who've become cut off in their rebellion because they've refused to listen to the Father for generations.

And so that's where we part ways.

I have no problem saying that we're inclined towards sin, that we, our wills are affected, all the things you just said, slaves to sin can still recognize they're enslaved.

And so even like an addict, a drug addict or an alcoholic can recognize they can't stop drinking on their own.

But that doesn't mean they can't recognize that fact, humble themselves, and check into a rehab facility when it's offered to them.

And that's exactly the same situation I'm saying we're in.

Yes, we're sinholics.

We, we are addicted to sin.

But we can see that given the Gospel, given the light of the truth of the commandments of God, the law of God, which is a schoolmaster, a teacher, telling us where we're fallen and we can respond to it.

That's why we're held responsible to the revelation of God.

Even as fallen men, because we can actually respond to it.

Whereas in the Calvinistic view, because of the nature you were born in, you can't positively respond to it.

And I just don't think that's established the Bible.

I think that's a systematic being read into the text.

Okay, let me, let me.

I'm going to assume this is someone who is following with your ministry, Peter Fox, Just from the.

And if not, it's just he's disagreeing with me.

But he said no, he's a follower.

Yeah, yeah, I recognize Peter, my definition of free will.

He said no, that's not a free will.

No one uses that definition except Calvinists who want to misrepresent the non Calvinistic view.

So Peter, the reason I say I define free will the way I do is actually referring to how we refer to God being free and the fact that we cannot do anything outside of our nature.

So our nature prior to Christ is sin.

And therefore it's not free in the sense that we can freely choose anything when the Holy Spirit indwells us.

Now we can choose between glorifying God or not.

We can, we can make that choice.

I would say before that we're enslaved to sin.

And so that's the difference that I'm making with the idea of free will.

Because we agree, everyone agrees we have a will.

Right.

So let me push on you a little bit, Andrew.

Yeah.

You know you talk about the regenerate man having a free will now.

So when you're tempted or when I'm tempted.

Any.

Let's just say regenerate man is tempted.

Okay, we'll use Peter since Peter was on.

Peter's a regenerate man and he's tempted and he falls into temptation.

Could he have freely done otherwise?

Yes.

Could he not have lied when he lied because he has a free will?

Because he could have stood up under the temptation.

So.

But did God decree for him to lie?

So God know in eternity past that he would lie?

Okay.

All those same philosophical questions come for the believer.

Yeah.

And this is where.

Lost person.

This is where.

When I hear you speak with Calvinism about Calvinism, I struggle with it is because when people say decree, they're not saying God forced Peter to lie.

I didn't say forced.

Okay.

Unless I decreed for a reason.

Yeah.

So the idea of decree means God knew it would happen if he's omniscient, which we, which we already agreed to.

Provisionist.

So far.

So far.

That's provisionism.

No, that's Calvinism.

That's the whole point.

That's why I say you don't understand Calvinism.

Calvin did not teach that.

And I can prove it to you if you would like for me to bring up the quotes.

The reason Peter did that on Calvinism is because God decreed it, not because God knew he would do it and allowed it to happen.

That's Mollenism.

That's our philosophical answer.

God knew it would happen and allowed it.

He did not intervene to stop it.

That is Arminianism and that is provisionism.

That is philosophically.

That is not Calvinism, at least not according to the leading proponents of Calvinism.

I would disagree with what you just said as far as Molinism.

Molanism is absolute determinism.

That.

That's because you can't deny libertarian.

It doesn't deny libertarian free will.

Absolutely it does.

Peter could have resisted that temptation.

The reason no is because he chose to go otherwise.

Not because God chose that world.

He no, it's absolutely because God chose that world.

Once God chose that world, he, Peter would not be able to do anything other than what he freely chose to do in that world.

Right.

And that's the same question Cy had.

Asked of you, Eric, about this, who's an actual molinist.

But what I'm saying to you is that the reason Peter did it is because of those things that Peter is in control over, not because of something God decreed for him to do.

Yeah.

So the thing is that's the difference in time, right?

Peter is making.

Let's not pick on Peter because I don't like picking on.

So in time, me, I do something.

To me it's a chronological issue.

The fact that God knew it would happen.

He's outside of time.

All this is happening.

He knows it the way.

And you're saying that.

But what is he knowing, Andrew?

He knows what he decreed for Peter to do.

Or is he knowing what Peter freely, libertarianly freely chose to do?

And I'm knowing, and I'm going to argue that the issue is it's sort of a mischaracterization or a fallacy of categories.

Because when you say decree.

Well, let me ask you this way.

Let me ask you what do you believe Calvinists mean by decree?

I think the decree, or what's referred to as theistic determinism, is the sovereign, unchangeable decree.

Even on one episode when he was confronting some white was confronting some higher Calvinists, they were even talking about a script that this is what God has ultimately determined will come to pass.

And he has decreed it happens.

Because he decreed it to come to pass.

He wrote it, in a sense, he's declared it to be.

And all things that he's declared to be decreed to be will come to pass Mass as he's declared it, as he's decreed it.

And so the concept of God knowing somebody will freely choose to do something and not preventing it is an Arminian slash Molanistic libertarian concept, not one of Calvin or Jonathan Edwards or Piper or the leading proponents of compatibilistic Calvinism.

I'll pull, I'll have to pull up my quotes from Calvin from that conference because John Calvin would disagree with that, but because, I mean, if you listen to it, this is why I keep saying the word forced.

Because what you just described is.

You describe that God has a plan and then man has to follow that versus God knowing what man is going to do in his omniscience.

That's my view and that's the Calvinist view.

That's why I always say you don't understand Calvinism.

Right.

That has nothing to do with the three points I mentioned earlier.

This gets in the philosophical side, not the theological side.

The three points that I brought up earlier that you said, where's the miscorrecteration of Calvinism have to do with total inability, unconditional election and irresistible grace, which I think I was very fair describing.

So this is the philosophical side of things.

And I can prove that you're mistaken with regard to the philosophies of Jonathan Edwards.

And everybody believes, every Calvinist believes.

Greg Koukl does not like what Edwards says about determinism.

I'm telling you there are Calvinists who claim theological Calvinism but deny the compatibilism that underpins it.

But Piper is an Edwin Calvinist.

He follows Edwards.

By his own admission, White falls more in that same line of thought.

And so I don't know what else to tell you.

But yet if you think that God's knowing in the future and just permitting it to happen and not intervening is determinism or are not determinism is Calvinism, then I'm sorry you don't understand Calvinism.

I actually understand it better than you do.

Well, I know, I know you always say that.

I know you say that.

And yet my response is you receipts as, as you're going to know everyone you say has you mentioned James White and yet he tells.

He has continuously said, I don't want to say always, so I don't want to use those.

But he continuously says on his show that you're misrepresenting his position.

So who knows his position better, you or him?

Well, he claims to be one who believes, like Edwards and Piper.

He doesn't.

He doesn't deny that.

And so I'm not sure why he's a list.

So he.

Which is just a synonym for determinist.

So let's talk irresistible grace, because we're going to run out of time.

So I'll deal with just that one.

And I may have to have you back on.

We got.

You know, Drew is backstage.

He's got 25 things starred here.

I got a dozen and a half questions that people gave me.

So maybe what we do is I have you come in and we just.

I was going to say rapid fire.

I don't know if you're capable of that.

Okay.

But I did 30.

I did.

Watch.

Me and Braxton, we go through 30 proof decks, and I keep each one of them under three minutes because he asked me to, so.

So you're saying I should have said your answers have to be less than five minutes.

Okay.

No, but probably.

Maybe we could do it.

Maybe we can have you back and try to get through a lot of the questions.

There's.

There's one indefinite.

Definitely want to make sure I get to before we end.

But, you know, with irresistible grace.

The reason I went to the doctrine of inspiration, I would follow that up with the doctrine of sanctification.

If you end up this February coming to the open air Theology conference, that'll be the topic.

But I would argue the same thing, as we have a free will as believers to do good works, and yet scripture says it's God who does those good works.

Right.

So that's the doctrine of superintending.

Again, we choose to do good, and that's exactly as God intended it to be.

Well, of course, when we do good, it's as God intended because he intends us to do good.

But when we choose not to do good, it's not because God intended it.

So that's the difference.

Yeah.

And he intends and wants us to be good, but we have the freedom to resist or suppress the truth.

And when we do so, we're not doing as God intended, we're doing against what God intended.

And that is, what is the doctrine that you disagree with as far as.

Oh, you're bringing Son up.

Okay.

I was like, why is Leighton Flowers in here twice?

Okay, look, look, look.

Here's just three quotes from Calvin, okay?

From the Institutes.

We maintain that by his providence, God's providence, not heaven and earth and an creatures only, but.

Only, but Also, the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.

He also wrote, the hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it supersedes superintends the word you were using superintends external actions.

Nor would God have affected by the hand of man what he decreed unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.

So he's not making them do it physically, he's making them will to do what they do freely.

In other words, doing as they, under the compatibilistic framework, freely is according to their will, according to their desire.

And God is ultimately making them will what they will.

Men do nothing save the secret instigation of God to do not discuss.

They do not discuss or deliberate or anything but what he has previously decreed with Himself and brings to pass by his secret direction.

I don't know how Calvin could be any more clear than this.

Edwards is even more clear because he debates and goes over this with so many people.

And Piper is also very clear.

Well, he has some contradictory stuff as well, but my point is that he is teaching theistic determinism, compatibilistic determinism.

And, and what you're saying is that that's not Calvinistic, yet the namesake and the leading proponents of Calvinism are promoting this perspective.

It sounds like you need to stand with me to reject what the Calvinists are teaching out there.

Well, no, what I'm saying is that you're arguing as if with the doctrine of superintending, we only take one side of that coin and not both.

As if we're saying, well, it's only God's word and Paul had nothing to do with it.

And that's not what we would argue.

Right, and that's why I go to the superintending, because that's what irresistible grace would be.

It is God working through someone.

So I would argue that do they choose, yes, they're going to call out to God.

But they're not doing that on their own.

They cannot.

Nobody says they're doing it on their own.

We say they're doing it in response to God.

John Calvin would say they're doing it in response to the effectual grace of God, which always accomplishes what God intends it to.

Meaning that if God intends you to believe, then you will certainly believe because he's not forcing you physically, but he's changing your nature and your desire such that you will certainly do what he's willed you to do.

But is he forcing your will?

Under our.

In my estimation, his will for you to.

Will will.

But he's not forcing you.

Well, if you define force in the broader sense, you could say force.

But he's not forcing you physically.

It's a moral issue because of your moral condition from birth.

According to the Calvinistic perspective, you will always say no to the gospel unless you were picked before you were born and irresistibly given a new nature, causing your desires to change.

Well, you certainly will believe in him.

That's the first three points I brought.

Brought up in the first of the thing which you said wasn't a good representation of Calvinism and still have not told me why.

I just did.

Because I keep telling you why.

Right.

Because what you're saying and late, I love you.

But so many people have told you you're misrepresenting Calvinism, you're misrepresenting what they believe.

And then you're saying, no, that's wrong.

I'm telling you that this is, you know, you're taking some quotes from Calvin and yet there's other quotes from Calvin that give the other side of it.

You're just not using those, right?

No, actually we have shows where we play things that seem contradictory because Calvin will often say things, as does Piper.

We'll have a video coming up shortly.

Matter of fact, Mike Winger just sent me a video of John piper talking about one becoming hardened.

And MacArthur has the same kind of video with people becoming hardened and they grow into a place where now they can't repent.

They've become so hardened in their sin that now they can't repent.

As if they could have at some point where on Calvinism, unless you're elect and regenerated, there was never a time in your life you could have repented.

And so to say that before they became hardened and closed their eyes and became in this hardened state that they could have repented is contradictory to the T of the entire tulip.

Systematic, which is you're born with that incapacity by nature.

And this is why we keep pushing back on Calvinists.

Because, yes, we understand they're saying both things they also preach, like quote, unquote Arminians, but it's not consistent with the claims of their system.

But yet during the show, you agreed with the T of tulip with total depravity.

No, I said those were the three points that define what Calvinism is where I disagreed with them.

But do you disagree with total depravity.

As Calvinists teach it?

Okay, so you disagree with what you Said earlier that the intellect, the emotion and the will were affected by the fall because that's what Calvinism teaches.

No, how they're affected.

Andrew, are you.

Calvinists assume they're affected by making them totally unable to respond positively to the gospel.

I think they're affected by.

By making them have the inclinations and desires to go away from God under temptation, but they still have the capacity to respond to the appeal of the gospel calling them to repentance.

So just because somebody's an alcoholic doesn't mean they can't confess that fact to get help.

Just because somebody's addicted to sin doesn't mean they can't confess that fact when they're offered help through the gospel calling them to repentance.

So we both believe there's an effect.

The Calvinist just take it beyond that to say the effect is total inability.

Whereas we say that the effect is an inclination towards sin and selfishness and the fallen nature.

But that's what the gospel has come for.

It's come to call us from our sinful, natural ways, fleshly ways to repent of that, humble ourselves so as to receive his grace.

So, you know, Peter is saying, and I got someone backstage that wants to come in.

I'm going to try to make that short.

But Pierre's saying, wow, that's, that's disingenuous to say.

Leighton is saying that we are affected means he accepts tea.

The reason I say that, Peter is because that's what total depravity means.

When you look at the arguments, when you, when you look at the arguments in the, you know, because remember, Calvinism didn't start with Calvin.

Calvin was.

Calvinism is given that name.

If we both walk out the sun.

If we both walk out in the sun and we look up at it and you're immediately blinded by the sun.

And when I look up at it, it blurs my vision.

We can both say it.

It hurt us, it affected us.

How did it affect you?

It blinded you.

How did it affect me?

It made my vision blurred.

Affected both of us.

So the question is not whether it affects us, it's how does it affect us?

And I think the Bible teaches that people who are lost are still responsible.

Okay, but that was able to respond.

To the life giving truth calling them from their lostness.

But that was not the arguments that came about which developed that the doctrine known as total depravity.

The argument being argued was that the will was not affected by the curse.

That was the argument being made at the time that total depravity was developed, so we can't rip it out of its historical context.

Certainly didn't believe that.

No, Arminius didn't.

Well, remember, Arminius was arguing for Calvinism in the early years.

He even in his later years never, never taught and believed that we weren't affected by the fall.

No, no.

Even Pelagius didn't teach that we weren't affected by the fall.

There.

There's no scholar in history that I'm aware of that teaches or ever taught that we weren't affected by the fall.

There's different degrees in which we believe they're affected.

Even within the Reformed camp.

Zwingli disagreed with Luther.

Luther accused Zwingli of being a Pelagian, and that's because they had a different view of inherited guilt.

Yeah.

So these kinds of accusations have gone back and forth since the beginning of history with these things.

But they have proof of inability.

The reason they have is because I think so much of it is people are.

And this is what we're having right here, is, you know, the.

You having a definition that you're applying to Calvinists that so many Calvinists say, that's not our position.

And you're saying, well, you don't understand Calvinism, that you understand Calvinism better than people that hold to the position.

I'm going to.

We have 10 minutes and I know we had to.

How many times.

How many times on my broadcast, Peter, can attest to this, or any listener can attest to this?

Have I said there are different forms and heights and it's not monolithic?

They're all different kinds of Calvinists.

That's why I've had Kochel on.

I mean, address Kochel.

I've addressed JI Packer.

I've addressed all these different people because they're different forms of Calvinism.

I don't think that the Edward John from Jonathan Edwards and Piper views are necessarily consistent, nor are the views that are held by lower or moderate types of Calvinists that we've confronted.

But.

But I am very much more fair to the Calvinist brothers in representing them than they are in representing us.

I can assure you of that.

And I've got proof of that.

If Calvinists would do, the leading Calvinists, at least the ones that people know of and hear out there, would do a tenth of the job I have done in letting us speak with our own words and not straw meaning and characterizing, mischaracterizing us.

I'm accused of that maybe because they hear one clip where I'm confronting a High Calvinist.

And they just assume that I'm thinking I'm just addressing all Calvinists as just one monolithic group.

Even though over and over I should get Caleb to go look for them all and just put them in a line of just four hour sequence of me saying, well, this particular Calvinist holds this.

Not all Calvinists believe this.

But of course, every time I give that caveat, I just wish it was in a line so that I could send it to folks like you who keep saying I am not representing Calvin Calvinism correctly when I always give the caveat over and over again.

I, I know you give the caveat, but then what you, what you describe is often not what, like, okay, so just because of time, I know you want to go right at the top of the hour.

So I'm going to bring.

So.

And I'm going to.

I'm going to do something.

This is going to be hard for him as well.

I'm going to bring Saitam broom, Kate.

And he, He.

He was here.

So I'm giving you five, five minutes, which is gonna be hard on both of you.

I'm sorry, but.

Because I got one.

That's probably one final question for Leighton.

That's probably good because I'm here against my better judgment.

Can you hear me okay?

Yep.

Okay, great.

I'm just curious.

Leighton, hello, by the way.

We have engaged each other.

He went through my website, the Tulip Test, on his podcast a number of years ago.

But just off the bat.

Yeah, I'm just wondering, how much, percentage wise, how much credit does Jesus Christ get for your salvation?

100%?

Absolutely.

Okay, 100%.

Okay.

Now, so those who are lost, why are they lost then?

If Christ gets 100% of the credit?

Like, are they damned because of themselves or because Christ has not saved them.

For the sake of time?

I do have an article that actually gets into that very question.

I'm not trying to dismiss your question.

I'm just saying if people want to go deeper, there is an article that gets deep into this question about the percentages.

I think we're responsible for our choices.

Meaning I think that we could have chosen to reject or accept the Gospel.

And I don't believe that in order for him to get 100% credit for the gift he gives, that it has to be given effectually.

In other words, I think he should get 100% credit for the gift he gives, even if I'm responsible to be the one who receives it or rejects it.

And in any other situation, if you give a gift to your kid and he squandered it or threw it in the trash.

Do you get any less percentage credit for the gift that you gave?

Of course not.

But does he get all the blame for rejecting it?

Sure he does.

So in your well intended effort to give God all the glory for your salvation, you've also given him all the blame for everyone else's damnation.

And I don't think that that's founded in the page of the script.

I'm just.

I'm just glad that you admit that Christ gets 100% of the credit for your salvation.

If we have time, then I could explore that further.

But my other question is, you believe that God knows the future.

Exhaustive.

You believe that he's omniscient.

I was happy to hear you admit that to Andrew.

So we are in time.

God is not in time.

God will know then who ends up in hell before he creates them.

Is that not fair?

Yes, but the reason he knows that is because he knows their choices.

No, that's fine.

Because he's determined their choices.

No, no, that's fine.

So God knows for certain where a person will spend eternity.

We both agree on that.

Yes.

Okay.

And we, we were addressing.

A second, hang on a second.

If God knows for certain that a person will end up in hell, can they end up in heaven?

They, they could have ended up in heaven.

That's not, that's not my question.

God knows for certain.

Difference between the two.

You're saying could, could, could it happen other than what God knows?

And I'm saying no to that.

Could it happen other than what they freely chose?

Yes.

Okay.

So we agree.

William Lane Craig talks about with a difference of necessity and certainty, something can be certainly known by God without being him being the one who necessitates it or causes it.

Well, we're not even talking about that.

We, we believe that God knows for certain a person and going to hell.

They will certainly, certainly go to hell.

Now if you're standing in front of that person, can they end up in heaven if you share the gospel with them and accept Christ?

Yes, because they have, they have not freely made the choice yet.

Thank God, didn't know.

God may know what they're freely going to choose to do, but that does not change the fact that they still have a free decision in the moment.

But I'm sure people watching.

Different philosophical perspective.

I'm sure people watching can see the inconsistency.

God knows for certain.

I'm sure they can see inconsistency with you as well.

Let me just finish.

God knows for certain that person will end up in hell.

You've agreed to that.

God knows for certain that person will end up in hell.

And now you're saying it's possible that they won't.

I say that's a big problem.

And thanks for your time.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks.

I think, I think, I mean, what he tried to do quickly there is kind of the point that I took a lot longer to try to talk about with you because I actually don't think there's a lot of difference between what you and I believe.

I think that I really don't.

I think the big issue is, you.

Know, it's, Can I address, can I address that though?

Yeah, yeah.

Let me just finish it though.

The reason that Sai's particular view is a problem is that that's not Calvinism.

Calvinism is not about God knowing what we're freely going to do and therefore it's going to be that way.

Certainly that's not that is Calvinism.

No, Calvinism's view is that he knows it because he has decreed it.

And I have quotes from Sproul and Piper sitting in a table and a round table talking about that.

The reason he knows it is that is because he's decreed it to be that way, not because he knows what people freely will choose to do.

And that's the difference between the certainty and the necessity.

That Cy did not want to go there because he knows full well well that he's defending the necessity.

No, the certainty of God's knowledge, the whole thing.

What he was trying to point out is the necessity is because of the certainty he knows, because he already knows what will happen in his omniscience.

We're not omniscient.

It's, it's the difference between God's knowledge and our knowledge.

That's where the struggle is.

You know, I, I, I think that's.

The reason why God knows it.

If it, the reason why he knows it is because he's determined it through sovereign decree, or he knows it because you freely, independently made that choice and you could have done otherwise.

The fact that matter about all the.

Rest of the philosophical speculation, it will come to pass because he knows it.

It's not that.

It's that he's and this is why I keep using the word force.

It's not that he is decreeing it and therefore it's forced to happen.

It's decreed because he knows what will be.

That is what Calvinism teaches.

And yet again, like this is what's.

Like I'm just, I'm telling you that as I read to you, three quotes proving in other words.

I brought receipts.

Yeah, you need to bring receipts.

I'll have to, I'll have to get to.

Yeah.

Did not teach.

Because they have determinism.

Yeah.

But they have talked about both sides of this.

And you're, you have the quotes of one side.

So you're right.

I'll have to get the quotes on.

The other side of us believe both sides.

We're claiming that they're.

That they're contradictory, they're not compatible.

And they're claiming they are compatible and appeals to mystery as to how they're compatible.

Well, we're not saying they don't teach both sides.

We're saying that teaching both sides is not compatible.

They're.

They're contradictory.

That's our argument against that view.

Yes.

And they're not do teach both sides.

They're not.

They want to do.

I would say they're not contradictory any more than Ephesians is written by Paul and God.

It's, it's the same.

But let me.

I want to give you time.

Written by Paul under the inspiration.

Exactly that.

So the superintending is important.

I encourage people.

If you go to rap report.org rapperport.org wrap with two Ps my rap report podcast, you'll see the.

Just do a search on superintending.

It's a bonus episode I did where I explain what that doctrine is and show how that works through with Calvinism.

But let me ask this question.

I want to make sure I get to this.

This is from Brian 9 of he's with Hearts for the Lost, an evangelistic ministry.

It's a group that goes to any church.

Anyone that wants to have them come out to your church to learn how to share the gospel, they will come into your church for free.

So you could go check out Hearts for the Lost.

But his question is referring to.

You heard his claim to be an evangelist.

However, I've never heard him discuss anything but the anti Calvinism and pro provincialism takes.

So this is back to what we said at the beginning.

So here's what he says.

Would love to hear him his take on evangelism in general and how he transitions normal conversations to share the gospel.

So what I'd like you to do is talk about your view on evangelism in the few minutes we have left.

And if you wouldn't mind presenting the gospel to anyone that's listening.

Yeah, I think this is one thing that one of the reasons that I always defend the fact that I believe Calvinists are my brothers.

I don't think being a Calvinist disqualifies you from the kingdom, as some people argue, or that you're a heretic and therefore can't be saved thanks to God's grace.

We're not saved by doctrinal fidelity, but by his grace.

And so I say that to say that, you know, Andrew's a friend.

And other Calvinists that are on this program and others that you know, teach Calvinism, I believe, are brothers.

And that's because God's grace is about our relationship with Christ, that Jesus came to pay the price for our sins.

Now I believe he loves everyone in the world.

We may differ on that, and some Calvinistic camps may differ on that.

I believe he's provided a way of salvation for every person through the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

And so our distinctions that we've been talking about today can unite on that, that we believe in Jesus Christ.

We believe that he has died for the sins of the world.

And we believe that anyone who puts their trust in him, who puts their faith in him, will be saved.

And we believe also, obviously, when we're.

Especially when you talk about evangelism or methods of evangelism.

I have courses on methods of evangelism and the whole statement of which method is best.

And we talk about the one you're willing to use, and we talk about different options and ways of doing evangelism within our courses.

The Way of the Master, even though some of the guys there may disagree with my theology on some things, I think has some awesome evangelistic resources for those that are looking for some good resources.

And so hopefully the heart of our love for one another and the heart of our common belief in Jesus Christ as the one who is the only way, the truth and the life, and the door for salvation.

And so if I were talking to you person to person and this was a big issue for you, the whole fatalism and predestination and Arminianism and Molanism and all those kinds of things, but you weren't a believer then I would immediately shift the discussion to talk about Jesus.

I would immediately want to talk about the things that matter the most, to keep the main thing the main thing.

And so please hear my heart when I say that the desire here is not to focus so much on the secondary matters that we lose the weightier matters.

And though I do believe these doctrines that we've talked about are important, the most important thing is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Love of Jesus Christ and the provision of Jesus Christ for the world.

So, you know, I appreciate you coming in.

I think that.

I hope that folks got a lot of, you know, I want to.

You know, I don't know if Drew would be able to do this or I could figure out how to do this, but I want to get all the questions he started.

There's least, like almost 30 questions back there.

And maybe what we do is have you come in and just kind of do a rapid fire.

We try to get through.

Because I probably have literally 50 questions between what he starred and what I have in notes.

It'd probably be kind of neat to just maybe have you come back and just answer questions.

Would you be up for doing that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hope.

If one thing, folks, maybe we have.

Eric on the philosophical side, and I'll take the theological side and we'll run through him real fast.

Then I'll bring Cyan for the philosophical side because he's more the philosopher.

But no, I mean, it'd be good just to go through some more questions, I think.

Look, one thing, and Leighton, you all know my heart on this.

The one thing I want folks to see is you can see Leighton and I disagree with one another.

We disagree with the views we have.

We disagree that we each think that both sides are kind of misrepresenting each other.

Right.

We can recognize that if I'm calling Leighton any names, it was clearly in jest.

I mean, he clearly looks at least four times older than me.

I'm actually.

Hey, you debate, don't you, Andrew?

Yeah, why don't we debate the topic?

Is Calvinism deterministic?

Theistically deterministic.

You know, theistic determinist.

It's not naturalistic.

Deterministic.

Is Calvinism historically?

Is Calvinism historically theistically deterministic?

Deterministic.

In other words, we can learn how to.

We can figure out how to phrase it.

But you.

You take the side that says, no, Calvinists are not theistic determinists, and I'll take the side that Calvinists historically are theistic determinists, and we'll debate it.

Okay?

I mean, I'd be open for that.

I mean, we have to define the terms, and we're going to have to limit it to say how we're going to define what Calvinism is.

Because that's where we get the issue is this is the whole thing.

The term Calvinism, it's like the term church.

If you get my book what Do We Believe, where I talk about the church, the Word Ecclesia Church has changed over time.

What it means, it's become more and more precise over time.

The Calvinism, and I would still use that word even though it clearly wasn't the label.

But the Calvinism of Augustine has changed in the Calvinism that you'd have of Calvin.

The Calvinism of, you know, that you end up seeing with a John Owen.

You know, differs from especially with limited atonement.

Yeah, exactly.

That's where the, the, the idea of limited atonement changes.

That's, you know, that's why I would, I would say I'm what's referred to as a classical Calvinist.

I'm, I'm.

I hold to the Calvinism prior to John Owens, what many of the Puritans held to.

That's cool to know.

I realize that.

So, yeah.

Disagree with Piper over that.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, so, so, so we have to recognize that.

So we'd have to figure out.

Okay, if we're going to define, if we're going to do that, we have to figure out what is what.

What Calvinism we're speaking of.

So we're not missing determinism.

Yeah, both be terms that would be.

The debate would be really over those terms.

Yeah.

Because in some sense, like you said, you, you can argue that moliness are determinists and even some molinists claim to be determinists that are still holding to libertarian freedom of the will.

And so I think that's the bigger separation is if you affirm.

Do Calvinists affirm libertarianly free will?

And I think people like Chris Date and Bingyong would argue no.

And you might argue yes.

No, I wouldn't want to be quoting Chris Date or.

I was talking also he's written.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So.

So yeah, I mean I'd be up for that.

And we'd have to, we'd have to talk through and work through definitions.

But yeah, that could be fun.

But I, I mean I did feel bad because I got a lot of people that asked questions and we.

And we never got to them.

So I want to at least try and get you back on for that.

Yeah, we'll just, we'll just schedule another time.

Time and yeah, maybe.

Maybe we can simulcast onto my program too or something like that.

Yeah, that'd be good.

So let me, let me just ask for folks watching next week for anyone who remembers some time ago, because this show is.

We didn't have too many people.

We have a number of people backstage.

Not everyone wanted to come in.

But this is a show where generally the second hour, anyone can come in, ask anything.

Okay.

We had a guy, Sebastian, who came in, wanted to argue that Mary is the Ark of the Covenant.

And, well, next week, Sebastian should be coming back and we will be discussing, slash debating really, with a canon of Scripture.

He argues that the church.

We didn't have a canon without the church.

And if you go back, we.

I think.

I think I'm going to bring Chuck in and ask Chuck whether Chuck was Sebastian in the episode when you and I were talking about your appearance on Godless Grandma.

I don't believe so.

I don't remember.

Okay.

I didn't remember if it was the show that.

When you were on.

Okay.

So I thought so.

But Chuck's been.

Was backstage this whole time quietly.

He had some questions that we didn't get to.

But that's fine.

That's fine.

But Sebastian will argue from.

He actually, it is kind of fun.

He will argue that the current Pope is not Catholic.

It will be a interesting discussion.

Let's see.

Theology.

This is so theology stuff.

Guy says Mary is the Ark of the Covenant.

Question mark.

Yeah, he.

It was interesting, his argumentation.

He was saying that, you know, the Ark of the Covenant held the word of God.

Mary held the word of God.

So it.

Yeah, okay.

So you can see how his logic is.

It will be fun.

It will be interesting.

You may want to bang your head against the wall, but you won't want to miss it.

So that'll be next week and the week after that on the 19th for folks who are regular here.

Many years ago, we dealt with some dangerous doctrines.

A church that.

Well, one of the people said was a cult.

And I was like, oh, that's going a little bit too far.

Be very careful with that.

And we've done a series on a church out in Iowa.

People have asked whether we would revisit that, whether we have any updates for that.

And so Kevin.

Kevin Yontz will come back on, and he and I will be discussing some of that.

Go back to that and give a little bit more because there was some things that did happen, even they happened a while ago.

We decided to remain silent based on some things.

Recently, we decided, you know what?

It's time to just.

To point some things out.

Some people who are just misrepresenting the truth yet again.

And so I said back then, we don't want to make.

This show is not about attacking others or, you know, constantly just reiterating, you know, just because it's easy to do.

That's not what this show is about.

We're here to do apologetics, to show apologetics, also show how to conduct ourselves like we did tonight in apologetics.

So with that, we're going to revisit it just because we feel a lot of people have asked for an update and there's some things that happen that cause us to think we should.

So with that, we will be back next week.

Hope you will join us.

And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

We'll see you next week.

Bye now.