Updated
5/16/02, see bottom of file
Dear Dave,
In the period of time since I finally
received my own copy of your book (you may recall I scanned
through it while standing at your table in St. Louis at the
PFO Conference) I have gone through a number of different
emotions. At first I was just going to do one
Dividing Line program about it, and then simply work
toward setting up a web page with various contributors
correcting your errors and refuting your argumentation while
pressing you to follow through on the public debate that you
have, as you recall, agreed to twice now (once in writing
last year, and while we spoke a few weeks ago in St. Louis).
But as I started going through and marking all the personal
references, I came across so many errors, and so many
tremendously false assertions, circular arguments, etc.,
that I truly began to understand why those who had already
seen the book, or portions thereof, were so upset by it.
But then today I ran into a section where you quoted me and
then made a truly amazing statement. I refer to page
306, where we read the following:
The gospel of God’s grace,
which seemingly is offered to whosoever will believe, must
be imposed---and that, only upon those who God has elected.
As White explains, this is why Irresistible Grace is an
absolute necessity:
Unregenerate man is fully
capable of understanding the facts of the gospel: he is
simply incapable, due to his corruption and enmity, to
submit himself to that gospel....
This is a terrible attack
upon the gospel, rendering powerless what Paul declares is
“the power of God unto salvation” (Romans 1:16)! And
this is what White calls “the Reformed position.”
I sat back, recalling the conversation
we had standing at your table. Dean McCoy was standing
there. You raised the issue of whether Calvinism is
“the gospel,” and objected to the Reformed insistence upon
that idea. You specifically made the point that you
believe Calvinists are saved. I wonder, however, in
light of your assertion that I am guilty of launching a
“terrible attack” upon the gospel, even to the point of
rendering the gospel powerless, as well as your oft repeated
statement in your book that you find Calvinism an affront to
your God (in opposition, it seems, to mine),
how consistent you are at this point? I wonder how
different that conversation would have been had I happened
to have stumbled upon the above quoted statement
immediately?
Of course, I find it highly ironic that you would say
that the Reformed belief is denying the power of the gospel.
You are the one who says that the gospel must be joined to
the autonomous act of human faith for it to come to
fruition. You are the one who insists that grace must
be capable of failure to be true grace. You are the
one who denies to God the freedom to love as we love, and
insist that He must fail in His efforts to save every single
person to be truly worthy of your worship. How your
synergistic system somehow makes the gospel more powerful
than the Reformed proclamation of a perfect Savior who saves
without fail I cannot begin to imagine.
I am writing this as an open letter, Dave, because you
have placed the disagreements between us into the public
realm with the publication of your book, What Love is
This? Given the prominence assigned to the
citation of my work, The Potter’s Freedom, and, most
importantly, the associated allegations of Scripture
twisting, eisegesis, and other serious charges, I believe it
best to respond to you openly so that the fair minded reader
can judge for himself who has fairly dealt with the issue
and who has not. You know that I wrote to you
privately when I learned you were writing this book and
exhorted you to reconsider your course of action. I
tried to be to you a true and biblical friend in warning you
that the comments I had heard you make on our radio
discussion on KPXQ radio in Phoenix indicated to me a deep
and abiding misunderstanding of the most basic issues in
this area (including such topics as systematic and
historical theology, hermeneutics and exegesis, and
historical studies). Hence, I believe that since I
truly attempted to give you sound advice before the
publication of your book, the time has come to make our
conversation one that is fully public in nature, hoping that
even if you do not choose to hear words of correction,
others will be edified and blessed by them anyway.
I will not attempt to deal with all of the areas in
which I find problems of fact and argumentation in your
book. Such would require a work of equal length to
The Potter’s Freedom. Instead, I will focus upon
some of the key issues in your work, for I believe once your
basic thesis has been refuted, the rest of the book follows,
since you repeat your thesis over and over again in
different contexts. Also, I am organizing a project in
which many Reformed men and women, laypeople, in general,
with some ministers as well, will write shorter sections on
various aspects of your book. Truly, Dave, I believe
you have left yourself open to refutation and criticism in
every aspect of your work. I believe we are
bound to provide an answer, not only out of love and
dedication to the truth, but due to the fact that, as some
of the essays being written will document, you were informed
of most of these problems before you went to press.
Elitism?
I would like to start with your assertion, even
made in personal letters to me, that to criticize your lack
of understanding of the Reformed position, and your lack of
scholarly training in history, the biblical languages,
exegesis, etc., is to somehow engage in “elitism.” You
have directly called me an elitist, as you will recall.
It seems you believe that seminary education, training in
Greek and Hebrew, study of theology, etc., is not necessary
for the task of engaging such topics as soteriology, etc.
And yet, I found it fascinating how often you yourself make
mention of the original languages, for example. You
refer to Greek terms, even though, as you have often
admitted, you cannot read Greek. You eschew
professional training in history, yet, you include chapters
of historical argumentation. This raises a problem, of
course. You have compiled page after page of simply
false argumentation as a result. Your handling of
Greek is filled with errors of basic grammar and meaning.
You have mishandled even the few lexical sources you have
referenced. You ignore the impact of grammar and
syntax upon translation. Your historical sections,
especially when dealing with Augustine and Calvin, are
marked by such a level of unfair use of sources (including
your failure to cite relevant historical facts that would
either contradict, or substantially ameliorate, the polemic
argument you are attempting to press forward) that they
parallel, sadly, the rhetoric of a Jimmy Swaggart, who
likewise railed against Calvin in the most unfair and biased
manner. Yet, when I have pointed out similar errors in
the past, you have resorted to the same assertion of
“elitism.” One wonders how to respond to you.
Would you listen to a person who is not trained in
Greek before one who is? I am almost convinced that
you would.
Some of the other things I have encountered in your
book truly make me wonder, Dave. I simply could not
believe that the source you used to come up with the
identification of Augustine as “the first real Roman
Catholic” was none other than Peter Ruckman himself.
Peter Ruckman, Dave? Gail Riplinger’s sole challenger
for the title of “Worst of the KJV Onlyites”? What do
you think Peter Ruckman would think of your assertion that
the KJV’s rendering of Acts 13:48 was determined by the
“corrupt” Latin Vulgate? Indeed, how did the staunch
defender of Gail Riplinger, Joe Chambers, endorse a book
that would dismiss a KJV rendering? An amazing thing
to see! I would love to ask Chambers about this.
Another item that leaves one’s jaw on the table is the
fact that The Berean Call makes the tape of our radio
discussion available, and yet, when you make reference to it
in your book, you misrepresent it! When you reference
our discussion of Matthew 23:37 in your book (p. 363), you
somehow forget to mention that you had mis-cited the
text in your newsletter, which was what led to the question
in the first place! Don’t you think people may just
listen to the tape and realize this, resulting in questions
about the accuracy of your representations, Dave? You
likewise said “White countered that Christ was not weeping
over Jerusalem....” No, I pointed out that you were
conflating Luke and Matthew, and that in the passage at
hand, Matthew 23:37, Jesus did not weep. These are
little issues, but they are issues that speak to the
accuracy of the presentation being made.
As you admitted in your book, you have received
numerous words of counsel against the publication of
this book. Tom DelNoce has informed you that your work, in
its final form, continues to contain clear
misrepresentations of the topic at hand. He is still
convinced you have not taken the first steps to truly seek
to understand fairly the position you are critiquing.
And you will recall that I likewise warned you. It
seems Rob Zins likewise tried to help you, and I can think
of a number of others. You pressed on despite the best
efforts of many who have spent years studying the issue that
you seemingly mastered in less than a year. Now the
work is out, and the issue is beyond your personal welfare.
The issue is now a matter of speaking the truth, and
refuting error.
The Tone of the Work
I was disappointed in the tone
of the work, of course. It is never enjoyable to be
accused of twisting God’s Word. It is sad to see the
level of rhetoric you chose to use. Indeed, when the
original source being reviewed contains constant ad-hominem
argumentation against the proponents of the system it is
critiquing, any response is made very difficult.
I have had to go back over this letter more than once,
toning down my words. I am just a man, and I become
agitated when falsely accused of things (and sadly, Dave,
you have put in print many false accusations against me,
which I shall document in the body of this letter).
But I have sought to go back over those sections where I am
dealing with your citation of my own work and have sought to
make sure that my reply is properly focused upon the issue
at hand. But even when dealing with general issues,
when you are reviewing a book that is highly rhetorical in
nature, as yours is, and one that contains basic errors of
fact (that are then turned into weapons with which the truth
is beaten), it is hard to respond without a certain element
of “strength.” Indeed, it is hard to see how your
statements are any more charitable toward Calvinists than
are your works on Catholicism or Mormonism.
Organizing this response has been difficult as well.
There are so many things to address. So I will begin
with a fundamental problem with your writing: you do not
fairly and properly use sources, whether historical,
lexical, or theological. It is hard to determine if
you just use secondary sources without checking the
originals, or if, due to the fact that you have chosen to
eschew professional training in the relevant fields, you
simply do not know how to use these sources properly.
I cannot determine which it is. I can only document
the reality of the problem.
A Glowing Example: Charles Haddon Spurgeon on the
Atonement
On
page 19 of your book, Dave, you make the assertion that
Charles Spurgeon “unequivocally” denied particular
redemption (limited atonement). Every single Calvinist
who has done any meaningful reading in Spurgeon will
be forced to immediately dismiss you as a very poor
researcher on the basis of this statement. Here I
provide the quote as you gave it, placing the materials you
did not include in bold (I thank Tom Ascol for first noting
this and rushing me the context). Folks who wonder if
you are being fair to Augustine or Calvin should note your
willingness to be completely and utterly inaccurate in your
representation of someone as recent as Spurgeon:
I know there are some who
think it necessary to their system of theology to limit the
merit of the blood of Jesus: if my theological system needed
such a limitation, I would cast it to the winds. I cannot, I
dare not allow the thought to find a lodging in my mind, it
seems so near akin to blasphemy. In Christ's finished work I
see an ocean of merit; my plummet finds no bottom, my eye
discovers no shore. There must be sufficient efficacy in
the blood of Christ, if God had so willed it, to have saved
not only all in this world, but all in ten thousand worlds,
had they transgressed their Maker's law. Once admit infinity
into the matter, and limit is out of the question.
Having a Divine Person for an offering, it is not consistent
to conceive of limited value; bound and measure are terms
inapplicable to the Divine sacrifice. The intent of the
Divine purpose fixes the application of the infinite
offering, but does not change it into a finite work.
Anyone familiar with Spurgeon knows
what he means by “the intent of the Divine purpose” here (he
means what all us Calvinists mean: it was God’s intention to
save the elect in the atonement). But the rest of the
section you quoted from makes it crystal clear:
Blessed be God, His elect on
earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the days
are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall be
multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour, and
to rejoice in Him. Some persons love the doctrine of
universal atonement because they say, "It is so beautiful.
It is a lovely idea that Christ should have died for all
men; it commends itself," they say, "to the instincts of
humanity; there is something in it full of joy and beauty."
I admit there is, but beauty may be often associated with
falsehood. There is much which I might admire in the theory
of universal redemption, but I will just show what the
supposition necessarily involves. If Christ on His cross
intended to save every man, then He intended to save those
who were lost before He died. If the doctrine be true, that
He died for all men, then He died for some who were in hell
before He came into this world, for doubtless there were
even then myriads there who had been cast away because of
their sins. Once again, if it was Christ's intention to save
all men, how deplorably has He been disappointed, for we
have His own testimony that there is a lake which burneth
with fire and brimstone, and into that pit of woe have been
cast some of the very persons who, according to the theory
of universal redemption, were bought with His blood. That
seems to me a conception a thousand times more repulsive
than any of those consequences which are said to be
associated with the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of
special and particular redemption.
That is on the very next page after the
one you quoted! Spurgeon refers to your
position, Dave, as “a thousand times more repulsive than any
of those consequences which are said to be associated with
the Calvinistic and Christian doctrine of special and
particular redemption”! Yes, Spurgeon was unequivocal
alright: only he said the exact opposite of what you
indicated! A quick scan of the relevant materials at
www.spurgeon.org reveals just how completely
in error your assertion is, and how many sermons affirm
Spurgeon’s belief in particular redemption. Here is
one of them:
http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0181.htm. I
quote him directly:
We hold--we are not afraid to say
that we believe--that Christ came into this world with the
intention of saving "a multitude which no man can number;"
and we believe that as the result of this, every person
for whom He died must, beyond the shadow of a doubt, be
cleansed from sin, and stand, washed in blood, before the
Father's throne. We do not believe that Christ made any
effectual atonement for those who are for ever damned; we
dare not think that the blood of Christ was ever shed with
the intention of saving those whom God foreknew never
could be saved, and some of whom were even in Hell when
Christ, according to some men's account, died to save
them.
You really should hasten to retract
this grossly errant assertion concerning Spurgeon. For
those of us who have even a passing familiarity with the
great English preacher, your comments about him were
outrageous. The misuse of the quote from Spurgeon’s
biography is simply indefensible, Dave. Do you not
think that we have these sources at hand? Will you
instruct your publisher to retract this statement in the
next printing of the book, along with a note apologizing for
such an error? Or will you ignore this word of
corrective advice as you have ignored so many others that
have been provided to you?
Following Norman’s Error
Another problem I encountered took me back, simply because I
had taken so much time to correct Dr. Geisler when he made
the exact same error! I refer to your denial of the
biblical truth that saving faith is a gift from God.
Specifically, you attempted to muster a whole range of Greek
scholars to your side, however, you did not bother to
respond to the refutations already in print (including my
own). The vast majority of those you cite on pages
361-362 do not deal with the position that I presented in
The Potter’s Freedom. Yet, despite the fact that
you did not offer a refutation of my exegesis, you did not
avoid taking a gratuitous swipe at me anyway. You
wrote in reference to Ephesians 2:8-9,
Calvin himself acknowledged,
“But they commonly misinterpret this text, and restrict the
word ‘gift’ to faith alone. But Paul....does not mean
that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given
to us by God....” Thus White and other zealous
Calvinists who today insist that faith is the gift are
contradicting John Calvin himself. (p. 362).
Why did you not inform your readers,
Dave, that 1) my presentation says that the entirety of the
preceding clause is the antecedent of touto (which
you errantly have as tauto on the same page) not
faith only, and that 2) Calvin was disagreeing with those
who said faith alone is the gift? I gave the
entirety of Calvin’s quotation on pp. 317-318, and then
explained the error Norman Geisler made by citing Calvin
exactly as you did on pp. 318-319. You ignore the
rebuttal and the offered citations regarding Calvin’s view,
repeat Norman’s error, and then accuse me of disagreeing
with Calvin, when it is self-evident to any honest reader
that I am not.
One might dismiss this kind of error if it was alone,
but it is the norm in your work, not the exception. I
have already shown your complete misrepresentation of
Spurgeon above. Then we have you repeating Dr.
Geisler’s error on Calvin, and accusing me of contradicting
Calvin when that is not the case at all. Then we have
your comments, immediately after your complete
mistranslation of Acts 13:48 (refuted below) regarding the
chapter in my book titled “Unconditional Election a
Necessity.” Why did you not tell your readers why the
chapter is included in The Potter’s Freedom Dave?
As you would have to know, having read it, I included that
short chapter for definitional purposes. Dr. Geisler
offered a completely a-historical definition of
unconditional election. The entire purpose of the
chapter was to demonstrate that the definition was well
known and well established and that Dr. Geisler was in error
in redefining it. Yet, ignoring the plain purpose of
the chapter, you take another unwarranted shot:
There are
assertions---fallible human opinions---which both Boyce and
White admit express merely a “theory.” This theory
must be tested by Scripture. Further quotations of
men’s opinions follow in the remainder of White’s chapter.
Of course that’s what the chapter is
about! I was not defending the doctrine from the
Scriptures in that chapter. As you well know, I
defended that doctrine from the pages of Scripture
elsewhere. So why the gratuitous reference to
fallible human opinions? How else are you going to
define the historical meaning of the doctrine?
Did I not write on page 124, “Given the confusion introduced
by Dr. Geisler...it is necessary to establish the historic
meaning of the phrase before we can respond to CBF’s unique
viewpoint”? I concluded the chapter with these words:
The Reformed position on
election is, first and foremost, a biblical one. Yes,
it flows from the sovereignty of God and the deadness of man
in sin; however, it is just as clearly and inarguably stated
in Scripture. So we turn to the biblical text and
CBF’s attempts to respond to those passages that teach
this divine truth.
Also, I never used the word “theory” of
the doctrine in that chapter. Boyce did so, using that
word in its 19th century meaning.
John 6 and Your Accusation of
Eisegesis
Most amazing is your cavalier and inaccurate handling
of John 6. You obviously recognize how important it
is, given the space you dedicate to it, but we are again
left wondering, “Where’s the exegesis”? Rather than
dealing with the presentation offered, you ignore the
exegetical content and instead provide us with a classic
example of how blindness to tradition leads to errors in
teaching. Rather than dealing with the grammatical and
contextual issues I presented (the text stands as a whole,
and flows perfectly from beginning to end), you ignore them
as if they are not even there. Allow me to document
the many, many basic errors in your writing on this subject,
and clear this glorious passage of the calumnies you have
heaped upon it in chapter 20 of your own book.
On page 329, Dave, you speak of my “enthusiasm”
regarding John 6:35-45. That is quite true. And
while you quote a number of my conclusions, you assiduously
avoid quoting the exegesis that leads to the
conclusions (and, of course, you ignore the vast majority
thereof in your attempted rebuttal, something anyone who
reads both works seriously will note). You engage in a
glaring act of equivocation when you write,
“Unconditional election and
irresistible grace” are found in this passage?
Yarborough, Piper, D.A. Carson, and J.I. Packer (among
others) also think so. Yet the words “unconditional”
and “irresistible” aren’t even there, nor can they be found
elsewhere in the Bible. (p. 330).
And Jehovah’s Witnesses dismiss the
Trinity because the term does not appear in the Bible.
So what, Dave? The concept does, and this is
the case with John 6 as well. “All that the Father
gives Me will come to Me.” Those are Jesus’ words.
It is the Father’s giving that results in the coming of
those so given. The giving precedes and
therefore determines the coming. Giving is a
divine act, and since it precedes the very existence of
those so given, it must be unconditional (hence, as I noted,
unconditional election). But, beyond this, Jesus says
that all that the Father gives Him will come
to Him. Not some. Not most. All.
Such can not be said in your synergistic system where grace
tries, but fails, to save at least some. What
do you call the belief that God never fails to bring His
elect people unto salvation, but that they infallibly come
in faith to Christ? It’s called “irresistible grace,”
Dave: when God raises the dead sinner to life, that newly
regenerated believer clings in faith to Christ. So, as
you can see, you do not need to use the terms
“unconditional” or “irresistible” to have those divine
truths right there in the text. And no matter how much
you dislike them, Dave, they are still there. As long
as John 6:37 remains in the Bible, people will embrace the
doctrines of grace.
You then wrote, “And God ‘limits this drawing to the
same individuals given by the Father to the Son’?”
Yes, Dave, He does. As I pointed out, the passage is
explaining the unbelief of the Jews. Remember
that the end of John 6 all these would-be disciples, other
than the twelve, walk away. They were surface
followers who were scandalized by the gospel message.
That is why Jesus refers to their unbelief, and explains
their unbelief in the words of John 6:37ff. The key
issue that your entire presentation fails on is this: all
that are drawn by the Father to the Son are raised by the
Son on the last day. To be raised by the Son is to be
given eternal life. Jesus gives eternal life to all
those given to Him by the Father (6:39). See the
connection? The effectual drawing of the Father to the
Son is what guarantees the truth of 6:37: “All that the
Father gives Me will come to Me.” Why?
Because God draws them. Beautiful consistency is the
hallmark of sound exegesis of the inspired Word.
I truly believe you recognize that you cannot deal with
this passage, Dave. Your attempts to poison the well,
engender an emotional response, and in general avoid any and
all meaningful interaction with the text, indicate this.
You seem to be almost pleading with your audience, knowing
they are entering dangerous ground to even read John 6:37-45
and consider what it means. And truly, any synergist
is in grave danger reading these words of the Lord!
They are so plain, so clear, so consistent. I have
seen so many come to embrace the doctrines of grace as a
result of a study of this passage. You are so fearful
of the passage that between the introduction of the text and
your first attempt to deal with it, you insert all sorts of
examples of special pleading. You write,
Read the entire passage
carefully; that is not what Christ says, as we shall see.
Whatever Christ means, it must be in agreement with the
message of God’s entire Word - and neither Unconditional
Election nor Irresistible Grace qualifies.
See, the difference between us, Dave,
is that I can simply let the passage speak for itself.
I can go directly to the text and walk through it and let it
address each issue in turn. You have to attempt to
persuade people that they can’t possibly find the doctrines
of grace here. Look at the effort you put into trying
to poison the well before you finally offer your
“explanation” of the passage. On page 330 you talk
about “Careless Extrapolation” as if the entire section is
even slightly relevant. You conclude the section with
a paragraph that basically says, “Hey, I’ve already refuted
this stuff. Don’t sweat this. I know this
passage sounds like Calvinism, but trust me, it
isn’t.” Then you have a section, “A Troubling
Tendency,” which is nothing more than ad-hominem
argumentation against Calvinists, all based upon your “God
can’t love freely and grace must be given to all to be
grace” fallacy that I and half a dozen others have attempted
to disabuse you of. And then you seem so concerned
that you add another repetitious section, based upon your
fallacious understanding of “whosoever” (refuted below in
reference to John 3:16) titled “The Overwhelming Testimony
of Scripture.” Now, if I argued against your point by
simply repeating that what I believe is the “overwhelming
testimony of Scripture,” you would eventually have to say,
“Lets get specific here and not just cling to generalities.”
That is why I don’t argue that way, of course. You
know John 6 at the very least seems to teach the
absolute sovereignty of God in salvation, so you have to
say, “Well, it can’t mean that, since I’ve already proven
otherwise” (the fact that your previous argumentation is
filled with the same kind of circular argumentation
notwithstanding). Why do you have to insist the
passage cannot possibly mean what the Reformed exegetes say
it does? Why not just prove the impossibility of our
exegesis?
On page 332 you boldly accuse the Reformed of
“annulling” the teaching of Scripture and “boldly changing”
the Scriptures. In each instance you are referring to
the fact that Calvinists engage in meaningful interpretation
of the text, recognizing that it is simply without merit to
use the kind of “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance”
interpretation you provide in your book, Dave. For
example, at one point you note how many times “whosoever”
appears in the King James Version of the Bible. You
drew conclusions based upon the appearance of the English
word, not seeming to understand that the term would come
from a number of different Hebrew and Greek words or
phrases. Even suggesting that an English listing of
the term “whosoever” is slightly relevant to the usage at
any particular passage while ignoring the particular
grammar and syntax of the text in question is without
merit. It is a false and slanderous accusation to say
that I, or any other Reformed writer, seeks to “change” the
text of the Scriptures. Just because you do not choose
to prepare yourself to understand the original language
texts of the Bible does not give you the right or basis to
accuse those who do of “changing” the text of Holy Writ.
In a later portion of this letter I provide a full
discussion of “whoever” and refute your insinuation that I
personally am “twisting” (your specific assertion is that
this is a “slight twist,” p. 270) John 3:16 to recognize
that it means “every one believing.”
Further, you are incorrect to say that Calvinists
interpret John 12:32 and “all men” as “all the elect.”
Recognizing again the context of the passage (the coming of
Greeks in search of Jesus), we allow the phrase to have its
natural meaning: all kinds of men, Jew and Gentile.
And you are likewise incorrect in your constant assertion
(repeated for the umpteenth time on page 332) that
Calvinists believe God will save “only a select few.”
The irony is that the very passage you completely
misrepresented regarding Spurgeon earlier in your work
contained these very words on the very same page you
cited:
Think of the numbers upon
whom God has bestowed His grace already. Think of the
countless hosts in Heaven: if thou wert introduced there
to-day, thou wouldst find it as easy to tell the stars, or
the sands of the sea, as to count the multitudes that are
before the throne even now. They have come from the East,
and from the West, from the North, and from the South, and
they are sitting down with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with
Jacob in the Kingdom of God; and beside those in Heaven,
think of the saved ones on earth. Blessed be God, His elect
on earth are to be counted by millions, I believe, and the
days are coming, brighter days than these, when there shall
be multitudes upon multitudes brought to know the Saviour,
and to rejoice in Him. The Father's love is not for a few
only, but for an exceeding great company. "A great
multitude, which no man could number," will be found in
Heaven. A man can reckon up to very high figures; set to
work your Newtons, your mightiest calculators, and they can
count great numbers, but God and God alone can tell the
multitude of His redeemed. I believe there will be more in
Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I
answer, because Christ, in everything, is to "have the
pre-eminence," and I cannot conceive how He could have the
pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of
Satan than in Paradise.
But I truly doubt you looked this
passage up anyway (indeed, I hope you didn’t, for I
would much rather believe you took someone else’s word for
it and did bad research than to think you actually did look
it up and simply ignored the glaring contradiction of your
position that you would have to see if you actually
did read it).
Likewise, you referred to John Piper and said, “In his zeal
to defend Calvinism he must not only change the meaning of
words, but maintain that the contradiction thereby created
isn’t really a contradiction at all.” Dave, given your
comments on Acts 13:48, and the fact that you change the
meaning not of a word, but a phrase (one of the problems in
your mishandling of that text, documented below), I would be
very, very slow to accuse others of “changing” the meaning
of words. You stand convicted on that point in a
number of instances. The difference is that you are
saying “I don’t agree with the Calvinist’s interpretation of
what this word means” while we are saying “Dave Hunt assigns
a meaning completely contrary to the proper lexical meanings
in the particular passage under discussion, based
upon grammatical and syntactical considerations that Mr.
Hunt does not even attempt to address.”
When we finally get to the text, do we
find you offering exegesis? No. No positive
presentation based upon the text is given, as you will find
in Reformed works of scholarship. Instead, we are only
told what the passage isn’t saying, not what it
is. You write,
Christ’s words are so simple
and straightforward. “All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me” does not say that “all that the Father
draws shall come to me.” Nor does “No man can come to
me, except the Father ... draw him” say that all that the
Father draws come to Christ. And surely “I will raise
him up at the last day” (John 6:40, 44, 54) refers to those
who actually come to Christ, not all who are drawn. It
certainly would not include those who are drawn and then
“draw back unto perdition” (Hebrews 10:39). The
Calvinist is reading into Christ’s words more than He
actually says. (pp. 332-333).
This is not exegesis, Dave. This
is desperation. No positive interpretation is offered
here. We are not told how this fits with the immediate
context, how the grammar and syntax inform us of the topics,
actions, and results recounted in the text, etc. We
are just given your assertions, nothing more. Upon
what basis are we to determine the truthfulness of your
statements, since you do not deign to offer us exegesis?
But even here, you have completely missed the point.
First no one says “giving” and
“drawing” are synonymous. One is between the Father
and the Son, accomplished in eternity past (6:37, 39).
The other is an act of the Father that efficiently brings
about the union of those so given to their Savior.
They are connected in that they have the same object (the
elect), but they are not synonymous in time (one took place
in eternity, the other takes place in time) or in nature.
Hence, the first two sentences you offer are simply not
relevant. But the next sentence shows that you know
there is an issue here that is very troubling to your
position, but you really do not know what to say about it.
You say that “surely” there is a disjunction between those
who are drawn and those who are raised up. To which I
say, “Prove it.” It should be easily done, correct?
You said that “surely” the one who is raised is not
coterminous with the one drawn, so you should have no
problem proving, from the text, that we should
introduce the disjunction you insist is there.
There is, of course, just one problem.
The text defies your disjunction. First, we note that
Jesus is charged to raise up to eternal life all of
those who are given to Him (6:37-39). Being raised up
on the last day is the same as receiving eternal life.
They are used in parallel in this passage. But, those
who are given to the Son are raised up, and those who are
drawn are raised up. If the results are the same,
obviously, the group is the same. But there is more.
In John 6:44, the key passage regarding “drawing,” we read:
"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws
him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” This is
a single sentence. In Greek we have, helkuse auton,
kagw anastesw auton en te eschate hemera. The
direct object of the action of the Father’s drawing is the
first auton, “him.” A grand total of two
words separate the first “him” from the second
appearance of the same term, “and I will raise him up
on the last day.” Now, you are telling us that this is
a different “him,” a different group of people. That
in fact there are many, many who are drawn who will not
be raised up. You are telling us that the Father draws
millions to Christ, but they do not experience the last
phrase of this single sentence. And upon what
basis? You don’t tell us. “Surely” you can do
so! What is the basis, Mr. Hunt?
You
later accuse me of “avoiding” Hebrews 10:38-39, which you
briefly cite here, as if it is somehow relevant. It is
not. No one would be “avoiding” the passage when
exegeting John 6:44, since it is not relevant. You
assume that someone who would “shrink back to
destruction” (NASB, the Greek term referring originally to
the lowering of sails, hence, a person who does not continue
on to a goal) was originally drawn, but the text nowhere
makes this assertion. Indeed, since John 6:44 makes
the very connection you deny in saying that those who are
drawn are raised up, none of those who would “shrink back”
were drawn by the Father to the Son in the first place.
There is no exegetical connection outside of your own
theology that says that you can be drawn but not saved.
Hebrews indicates people can be part of the external
congregation but not be saved. To take your
theological conclusions and read them back into the text and
then accuse the rest of us of “avoiding” a connection you
create thereby is, again, without scholarly merit.
Next you
directly accuse me of eisegesis (p. 333). Well, if I
have improperly exegeted a passage, I am glad to receive
correction. However, since you offer no exegesis
yourself, upon what basis can you hope to establish such a
charge? You write, “In examining White’s and other
Calvinists’ methods of interpretation, one often finds
eisegesis forcing the text to say what it doesn’t say in
order to fit their theories.” Strong words, Dave, for
someone who has chosen to remain unaware of the nuts and
bolts of hermeneutics in the first place. When you
cite from The Potter’s Freedom, you cite only
conclusions, never any of the exegetical argument that went
into those conclusions. You offer not a word of
comment on any of the exegesis, including discussion
of lexical meanings, grammar, syntax, context, flow, etc.
And yet you begin by accusing me of eisegesis?
Very strange indeed, Dave. Instead, you offer
rhetoric. Note your own words:
Where in this passage does
Jesus mention “total depravity” or “dead in sin” or “incapacity”
or “unable to please God” or anything about an “elect.”?
None of these Calvinist theories is there --- nor is any
part of TULIP even implied.
Jesus did not mention total depravity
in those specific words in this passage: He preached that
man is unable to come to him. He said man lacks
the capacity, the ability, to come to Him. That’s the result
of sin, the result of total depravity. “Dead in sin”
is related to the very same thing: Jesus said men are
incapable of coming to Christ, and this is due to their
deadness in sin (Eph. 2:1-3). “Incapacity” is directly
stated in John 6:44, “no man is able” (Greek: ou dunatai).
My reference to “unable to please God” was, in the text you
were citing, taken directly from Romans 8:7-8, not John 6,
and yes, that phrase appears there:
because the mind set on the
flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself
to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and
those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
“Cannot please God” translates
aresai ou dunantai, a direct parallel to John 6:44.
Next, God the Father gave a distinct group to the Son
(6:39): Paul calls them the elect, hence the term.
Now, it strikes me as a desperate statement to say that none
of these “Calvinist theories” are here nor that any part of
TULIP is implied in John 6:37-44. Any person simply
reading the passage can see the sovereignty of God, the
depravity of man (the whole section explaining the unbelief
of men), the fact that the giving of the Father to the Son
precedes and determines the coming of those
given to Christ (turning your eisegetical insertion of your
false definition of foreknowledge upside down, I note in
passing) hence something called unconditional election,
etc. and etc. It sounds to me, Dave, like this is
wishful thinking. You went on to say,
Jesus does not say that the
drawing must be limited to the elect or universalism would
be the result, or that the drawing is either irresistible
or unconditional.
Jesus did not utter those words, but He
taught those concepts when we actually attempt to engage the
text on an exegetical level, Dave. Why would I say
that the drawing must be limited to the same ones who are
given by the Father to the Son? That’s simple: all who
are given by the Father come to the Son: only those who are
drawn can come to the Son. Secondly, those who are
given are eventually raised to eternal life, and, despite
your denial of it, all who are drawn are likewise raised to
eternal life. The simple flow of the text proves the
correctness of the conclusion offered. Only by
atomizing the text can you avoid the clearly intended
connection on the part of the Lord Jesus. As to the
drawing being irresistible, since it results in the raising
to life of all those who are drawn, it would certainly not
be resistible. And, since only those who are
given by the Father to the Son are drawn, and that giving
was, again, plainly unconditional (since it took place prior
to the existence of those given, and determined their coming
to Christ), we see the concept of unconditional election as
well.
Your argument comes apart at the seams
when you try to engage the text’s assertion that the one who
is drawn is raised up. You write,
It is quite clear that
Christ does not say that everyone who is drawn will
actually come to Him and be saved. That simply is not
in the text. Nevertheless, White is joined by a host
of others who consider this to be one of the premier
“predestination passages” and a prooftext for Irresistible
Grace...Schreiner and Ware assert with White that “the one who
is drawn is also raised up on the last day.” Yet
Christ clearly says it is those who come to Him whom He will
raise up at the last day. (p. 334)
Dave, the only possible reason why you
could not see why I join such scholars as Tom
Schreiner and Bruce Ware and R.C. Sproul and Charles Hodge
and B.B. Warfield and so many others is that you do not
want to see it. You have been blinded by your
traditions. It is not that the text is unclear.
Your thinking is what is unclear here, not the text, and I
do not say that with any malice toward you at all.
Let’s look at the text again and see how your argumentation
is flawed.
First, you are making a positive
assertion, but you refuse to state it that way, hoping that
by stating it negatively, you will not be forced to
substantiate your claim. You are saying that Jesus is
teaching that there are those who are drawn who are not
raised up. You are saying the second “him” in verse 44
refers to a different person than the first. Now, you
offer us no substantiation of your claim, anywhere, but you
expect us to accept your claim, seemingly without any basis
other than your own authority. I do not argue as you
do, Dave. When I say those who are drawn are the same
ones who are raised up, I provide exegetical basis.
Here’s a summary:
1) There is no reason to insert a
disjunction between the direct object of helkuse and
the direct object of anastesw. In fact, when we
consider the syntax of the passage, we note that while
helkuse is found in a subjunctive clause, the main tense
comes from oudeis dunatai elthein, “no one is able to
come.” Note that the verb in the last clause is a
future, “and I will raise him up.” The
progression naturally flows into the last clause without
interruption. That is, there is nothing indicated in
the verbal structure to make kai disjunctive in any
way (something you would need to find to be able to
substantiate your assertion). The natural reading is
to see auton in both clauses as synonymous in extent
and meaning.
2) Those who come to
Christ are those who were given to the Son by the Father
(John 6:37). Again, verbally, the giving
precedes the coming. This is why your entire
explanation of the text is impossible: you turn it on its
head, insert the foreign concept of foreknowledge (and using
it in an unbiblical fashion), and make the result of
being given the grounds of being given! We come
to Christ as a result of the Father having given us
to the Son. You say we come to Christ, the Father
foresees this (how the free actions of autonomous creatures
can be foreseen in this fashion you do not explain, nor, do
I believe, can anyone really explain it outside of positing
God’s sovereign decree in light of Ephesians 1:11), and on
the basis of our foreseen faith, gives us to the Son.
This completely reverses the order of Jesus’ own words.
Those who come are those who are given; those who are given
are raised up by Christ (6:38-39). Those who are drawn
are raised up by Christ.
3) John 6:44 explains how
it is that all those who are given by the Father to the Son
will, without fail, come to him. It does not make the
giving and the drawing the same action, as you errantly
assume, but it does make it certain that all those who are
given are, at the time decreed by God, drawn by the Father
to the Son.
4) Besides all these issues,
there is another reason I have not yet presented for
rejecting your disjunction. John 6:45 states,
"It is written in the
prophets, 'AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.' Everyone
who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.”
This verse is not discussing something
different, but expressing the same truths in
different words. The Lord did not all of a sudden
insert some foreign idea here, but is now using hearing and
teaching as another way of speaking of the divine work of
God whereby He draws His elect unto the Son. Who is
Jesus referring to? All who are given by the Father to
the Son, of course, and all who are drawn by the Father to
the Son. The ability to hear (or the lack of
ability to do so) is a common theme in John’s gospel.
Note the same theme in John 8:43, 47:
Why do you not understand
what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My
word. He who is of God hears the words of God; for
this reason you do not hear them, because you are not
of God.
If we take your view, Dave, we would
have to read those words differently, would we not?
“Why do you choose to not understand what I am saying?
It is because you choose not to hear My word. He who
has chosen to be of God hears the words of God, just as the
one who has not; for this reason you do not hear them,
because you have not chosen to be of God.” That’s how
you would have to rephrase such passages, is it not?
Jesus spoke of an inability to hear (“cannot hear”) in John
8:43 just as He spoke of an inability to come in John 6:44.
See the connection, Dave? John 6:45 says that those
who hear and learn from the Father do what? Come.
What do those who are given by the Father to the Son do?
Come. John 6:45 parallels hearing and learning with
drawing. If being given, hearing, and learning, all
result in one coming to Christ, and yet hearing and learning
is parallel to being drawn, then the only possible logical
result is what? That all those who are drawn come to
Christ and are raised up on the last day. So,
graphically:
6:37 Action: Given by
Father Result: All come to Christ
6:39 Action: Given by Father Result: None
lost, all raised up
6:44 Action: Drawn by the
Father Result: Come to Christ, raised up
6:45 Action: Hear from and
Taught by Father: Result: Come to Christ
There is a strong, clear, irrefutable
line that flows from 6:37 through 6:45, Dave. You may
try to deny its existence. You may tell your readers
it is not there. You may vociferously claim it
contradicts other Scriptures (it only contradicts your
misunderstandings of other Scriptures). Indeed, you
wrote on page 336, “Moreover, to ‘draw’ someone in the
ordinary sense of that word doesn’t mean they will
necessarily come all the way, nor is there anything in
either the Greek or the context to suggest, much less
demand, that conclusion.” We have now seen that this
statement is completely untrue. But the fact is, the
teaching is there. It is consistent throughout the
passage. It is consistent with every grammatical,
lexical, and syntactical analysis available. And it
tells us that God the Father gives the elect to the Son, who
infallibly and perfectly saves each and every one; it says
that the Father draws those same undeserving sinners in His
grace to the Son, and the Son infallibly raises them up on
the last day. These exegetical considerations are the death
knell of your entire 20th chapter, Dave, a
chapter in which you accuse myself and others of eisegesis
and misinterpretation.
I should note, Dave, that the rest of
your attempted response to John 6 is dependent upon this
very point, and since your explanation here has failed, the
rest of it, of course, is left without a foundation. I
believe you have a responsibility to your readers, since you
have published on this topic, to speak the truth to them.
If you cannot provide a solid, reasoned, truthful response
to the information I have presented to you here, you should
withdraw your assertions. Indeed, you wrote on page
335,
The burden of proof is upon the
Calvinist to show where the Bible clearly states his
doctrine; yet even in this passage which White calls “the
clearest exposition of Calvinism,” the theory is not plainly
stated but must be read into it or it could not be found
there at all.
Yet, as I have now shown, the Bible
does clearly state the doctrine, and your every attempt to
cast doubt upon the clarity of the revelation has failed
upon the first examination of the text in a properly
exegetical fashion. You allege we are reading into the
text, yet, when we let the text speak for itself, it teaches
these truths with great clarity. You are reading these
truths out of the text so as to substantiate your
tradition. Yes, I know you allege I am doing the
same thing, but, as any formal debate between us would show,
one of us can provide an exegetically consistent foundation
for his position, one cannot.
Despite this, on page 335 you provide
another paragraph that parallels the rhetorical paragraphs
you inserted prior to your brief attempt to deal with John
6, that is, another rhetorical attempt to muddy the waters
by repeating your basic assertions along the lines of
“Calvinists are so wrong there isn’t even the slightest
bit of basis for anything they believe." This
kind of argumentation is simply too easy to refute. I
would never use such argumentation against Roman Catholics,
for example. I would never say, “There is absolutely
nothing the Roman Catholic could ever point to so as to
substantiate their position.” That is begging
simplistic refutation. Of course the Roman Catholic
can point to things in defense of their position: the issue
is, are their arguments consistent with biblical revelation,
history, and are they consistent with themselves? Here
is your paragraph with responses inserted:
Indisputably, the phrases
themselves which are represented by the first four letters
in the acronym TULIP never appear in the entire Bible. [Neither
does the word Trinity, nor “pre-tribulation rapture” to use
a term you frequently utilize, but as anyone can see, the
use of specific terms is not the issue: the phrase “free
will” does not appear in the context of man’s alleged
ability to freely choose or reject Christ, either. The
issue is, does the Bible teach the concept that is described
by phrases like Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, etc.]
That fact should speak volumes. [It doesn’t]
Where is it stated in plain words that men are by nature
incapable of believing the gospel or of seeking God? [That
would be John 6:44, Romans 8:7-8, and Romans 3:10-11, just
to name a few representative samples] Where does
it say in clear language that men are chosen unconditionally
to salvation [Ephesians 1:3-11, Romans 8:28-31, etc.],
or that grace is irresistible [every passage that
describes the work of salvation as a divinely powerful and
radical change, such as the removal of the heart of stone
and the giving of a heart of flesh (Eze. 36:26) or the
giving of life to the dry bones (Eze. 37) and every passage
that says that we are saved by grace alone (Eph. 1:6)
teach the divine power of saving grace, which is all
irresistible grace is about] or that Christ died only
for a select few? [We do not believe it is a few, we
believe it was for all the elect, which no man can number,
and the plain words would be such passages as Matthew 1:21,
Romans 8:31-34, Eph. 5:25, etc.] Where does it say
explicitly that one must be sovereignly regenerated without
any understanding or faith before one can understand and
believe the gospel? [This is the constant
misrepresentation of the Reformed position that is found
throughout your work. God uses the proclamation of the
gospel as the means of bringing the knowledge of Christ to
His elect. The fact that regeneration precedes saving
faith is found in numerous passages, such as John 1:12-13, 1
John 5:1, etc., and is likewise substantiated by the
description of faith as a gift given by God, Phil. 1:29]
The Calvinist cannot produce for any part of TULIP a
clear, unambiguous statement from any part of Scripture!
[That is wishful thinking, Dave, and has been refuted
above] Calvinism must therefore be imposed upon
certain texts because it cannot be derived from any. [An
assertion that any person who has taken the time to read
both sides knows is far beyond any kind of rational basis]
You then echoed the constant theme of
our radio exchange from August of 2000 when you write,
“Where does the Scripture clearly say that God desires
billions to perish and that it is His good pleasure and even
to His glory to withhold from them the requisite
irresistible grace?” Though I know you have not
listened to any of the men of God who have spoken to you
over the course of the writing of your book, it is still
necessary to speak words of truth again. Your
objection is in error. God desires the salvation of
His elect. Desire is a positive term. God’s
judgment against sin is not a matter of desire, it is a
matter of law. God’s law demands punishment of sin.
Any person outside of Christ is under God’s wrath.
Wrath is negative, desire is positive. God does not
“desire” that billions perish. You assume that if
something is a part of God’s sovereign decree that it means
it is a positive desire on God’s part. Such is not the
case. In both of our beliefs God punishes sin.
In both of our beliefs God knew this would be the outcome of
His act of creating. In mine, God determines to make
His wrath and power and holiness known as a means of
contrast to His grace and mercy. In your belief, for
some reason, you do not want there to be an eternal purpose
in God’s creation, but instead, God creates and yet man then
determines the ultimate outcome, at least in reference to
the salvation of individuals. Then you use a phrase
that speaks loudly to the error of your view of grace,
that being, “to withhold from them the requisite
irresistible grace.” Dave, the terms “requisite” and
“grace” are not to appear in the same phrase. Grace
can never be “requisite.” As I told you in August of
2000, if the governor of a state, who is given the authority
to pardon criminals who sit upon death row, pardons one of a
hundred such justly condemned criminals, you have no basis
upon which to demand that the governor is required to
extend the same pardoning grace to the other ninety-nine
justly condemned criminals. Grace and mercy cannot
be demanded. No person could come to the governor
after the execution of one of those justly condemned
criminals and say, “You are to blame! You withheld
the requisite pardon of that man!” No, the
governor was under no compulsion to pardon anyone.
The criminal was justly punished.
On page 338 you write,
And even some who are chosen
are not willing to fulfill their calling but betray the One
whom they claimed was their Lord. Jesus said, “Have
not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He
spake of Judas Iscariot...” (John 6:70-71).
If it is your purpose here to attempt
to parallel the Lord’s choosing of Judas with election unto
salvation, you have again made a basic error. Judas
was chosen to be one of the twelve. He was not chosen
to salvation. In fact, he is called the Son of
Perdition, and was marked out for his role by the decree of
God (Matthew 26:24; Mark 14:21; John 17:12)! That there are those who pretend to faith in
Christ and then deny that pretension there is no doubt.
That these are the ones drawn by the Father to the Son is
contradicted by all that has already been noted above.
Interestingly, under the subtitle
“Except the Father Draw Him: What Does That Mean?” you note
that “No one naturally seeks the Lord; we all seek our own
selfish desires, and no one can come to Christ except the
Father draw him. But the Holy Spirit is in the world
to convict all of their sin and need (John 16:8-11), the
gospel is being preached, the Father is drawing everyone
(even through the witness of creation and conscience).”
Now let me ask, if you are correct, then why do you embrace
Christ, and your moral Buddhist neighbor across the street
does not? Are you smarter than he is? More
spiritually sensitive? Better, in any way? What
makes you to differ? Is the Holy Spirit working just
as hard on him as He did on you? If so, why do you
believe, and he does not? No matter how hard you try,
you can’t avoid coming to the conclusion that, in a “free
will” system of salvation, those who believe do so because
there is something different about them. If the Spirit
is bringing equal conviction to bear upon each individual,
the only deciding factor, given equality in everything else,
is something in the person himself. I believe
the only possible difference between the redeemed in heaven
and the guilty, condemned, punished sinner in hell is a
five-letter word, Dave. It’s called “grace.” You
continued,
White claims that “draw”
indicates a total incapacity on man’s part. He insists
that Christ is not saying that His Father draws men so they
may come to Him while still require their willing
participation. Instead, he asserts that “draw” means
man can’t cooperate in any way, but is irresistibly drawn
beyond his power either to agree or disagree. That’s
not being drawn, but propelled against one’s will. (p. 339)
Unfortunately, you do not inform us
where you are quoting from. Assuming you are dealing
with chapter seven, pages 159 and following, you will note
that in that section I insisted, strongly, that the Greek
phrase ou dunatai, translated “is not able,” is the
source of “total inability” in John 6:44. It is a
misreading of my text to say that I connected drawing
with inability as to its source. The drawing is
necessary because of the inability expressed in ou
dunatai. You have simply misread the text, and, I
note, I covered this material in our radio discussion as
well.
At this point, Dave, we encounter one
of the worst examples of horrific argumentation, including ad-hominem,
misrepresentation, and simply gut-wrenching illogic, in all
of your book. You wrote, under the ironic subtitle of
“Eisegetical Illusion,”
To support his assertions, White
quotes Calvin, to whom he refers with great admiration.
Apparently, as far as White is concerned, Calvin’s
tyrannical rule of Geneva where he exhibited much pride,
impatience and lack of love and sympathy toward those who
dared to disagree with him, even resorting to torture in
order to persuade, gives no cause for suspecting Calvin’s
understanding of and fidelity to Scripture.
This kind of rhetoric is simply
reprehensible. You should apologize to every person
who has plunked down the money to buy this book for this
kind of statement. First, if you were the careful reader you
claim to be, you would know that my presentation of John
6:44 is based upon the exegesis of the Greek text, not
quotes from John Calvin. You would have read, or at
least looked at, my book, Drawn by the Father, which
is on nothing other than this passage. Since you have
shown yourself unwilling, and I truly believe, unable, to
respond to the exegetical presentation, you choose to appeal
to those in your audience who are susceptible to
emotionalism. This is an obvious attempt to poison the
well through the use of wild rhetoric combined with simple
misrepresentation.
Secondly, this kind of anti-Calvin
rhetoric is nigh unto “screeching.” To anyone even
slightly familiar with sound historical studies on the life
of John Calvin, the context in which he lived, and his work,
the words you have put into print put you on the same level
as Jimmy Swaggart, and grossly belie the ascription to you
of the term “scholar” on the back of your book. Your
entire presentation on Calvin is so lacking in the first
element of fairness (let alone charity) that it truly leaves
one breathless. However, it is so overboard, so
without the first bit of honesty in its use of sources, that
it is truly self-destructive. Those who are not
interested in the truth will not take a second look and
check your arguments and sources. But those who are
will find your presentation so strident that they will
likely turn to other sources for further information.
And if they pick up a fair, accurate, scholarly work on
Calvin’s life, such as John T. McNeill’s The History and
Character of Calvinism (Oxford, 1967), they will find a
contrast that will, I trust, lead them to a proper and fair
evaluation of John Calvin, the man. They will learn
about all the things you unfairly and maliciously left out.
And while Calvin really doesn’t care what you say about him
today, the one who will suffer loss, in terms of simple
credibility, will be you.
You continue your tirade against
Calvin, seemingly thinking, for some reason, that this is
relevant to the issue at hand, the exegesis of John 6.
The fact that you would insert this material here speaks
volumes to your methodology, Dave. It is obvious you
are not pursuing the truth here, but are seeking to create
in the mind of your reader such a level of prejudice as to
guarantee their acceptance of your conclusions without any
fair consideration of the facts at hand. Such is, as I
noted above, reprehensible on any level. Christian
authors are to be men of truth, and are to eschew such
dishonest methodologies.
Between this attack upon Calvin and the
continuation of it on page 341 and following, you insert a
single paragraph, just one, that deals with something
relevant to the passage. But this paragraph,
sandwiched in between blasts aimed toward Geneva, hardly
begins to make sense. You recognize that coming to
Christ is synonymous with believing in him. Quite
true. But then you show the continued confusion that I
identified on KPXQ two years ago. You insist that
somehow this contradicts the biblical fact that faith is the
gift of God and is only possible in the spiritually living
person. But to be honest, your argument makes no sense
to me at all, and hence defies a rational refutation.
It is possible that since it dwells between paragraphs of
unrestrained slander of John Calvin it was not really meant
to make sense anyway. It is hard to say.
The organization of chapter 20 defies
summary. After blasting away at Calvin for a while,
you go back to the topic of John 6, but you start from the
beginning yet again. Most of the errors you made
before are repeated here, but there are some new twists.
You focused upon my assertion that there is no non-Reformed
exegesis of the text of John 6 “available” that is
consistent. Your writing only serves to substantiate
my assertion, that is for certain! But in the process
you once again demonstrate that it is not wise to on the one
hand say, “I choose not to prepare myself to do scholarly
exegesis through the study of the languages and means by
which to fairly engage the task” and “I choose to engage a
topic that requires intensive work in the field of scholarly
exegesis.” Instead, you turn to John 6:65, give completely
irrelevant information about didwmi, and insist that
what is being said is that the Father gives men a chance to
believe. You write,
There is no question that
the Calvinist interpretation of John 6:37-45 is contrary to
the entire tenor of Scripture. Let us examine it, too,
in this specific context. In John 6:65, Jesus uses
slightly different language in saying the same thing: “no
man can come unto me, except it were given [Greek,
didomi] unto him of my Father.” Note that it is
not a giving of the sinner to the Son, but a giving to the
sinner (given him), making it possible for him to
come to Christ. (pp. 343-344).
You have leapt from exegesis to
eisegesis in your last comment. See, Dave, it is just
here that again you demonstrate the essential correctness of
the words I wrote to you before this book ever came out.
While you provided an entire page of uses of didwmi
you failed to actually deal with the word as it appears
in John 6:65. The term is used often in the Greek
New Testament, and noting uses in other contexts that are
grammatically, contextually, and syntactically unrelated is
simply bluster. It has no meaning in exegesis unless
you can explain its direct relevance to the text at hand,
and this you do not even attempt. Yet, without even
touching upon the actual grammar of John 6:65, you quote
irrelevant uses of the term and conclude,
Surely all of the usages
(and others like them) give us ample reason for the very
non-Reformed exegesis which White says is not “available.”
The Father draws the lost to Christ by giving (didomi)
to them the opportunity to believe. The giving of
those who believe to the Son is of another nature. And
those who are drawn by the Father must, in response to the
Father’s drawing, “see” Him with the eyes of faith and
believe on Him to be saved. The giving of the Father
to the Son is something else - a special blessing for those
who believe. (pp. 344-345).
That is all very nice, but, of course,
it has nothing to do with the text of John 6:65. That
is surely what you believe, but you have failed, completely,
to connect this to the text in a meaningful fashion.
Allow me to point out the problems with your assertions.
1) The “uses” you offered are irrelevant to John 6:65.
didwmi is used in a wide variety of ways, but you
forgot a basic, simple duty of the exegete: you did not
demonstrate that any of your examples were grammatically
parallel to or relevant to John 6:65.
2) You say the Father draws the
lost to Christ by giving them the opportunity to believe.
Nowhere in John 6 do we find the phrase “opportunity to
believe.” There is no “opportunity to believe” in John
6:65.
3) The giving of a specific
people to the Son by the Father, documented in John 6:37-39,
is in fact the same concept enunciated in John 6:65.
And you have failed to deal with the fact that it is the
giving of the Father to the Son that results in the
coming of any person to Christ (which contradicts your
“foreknowledge” argument presented elsewhere).
4) Just as you err in your
comments on Acts 13:48 by ignoring the periphrastic
construction found there, you misinterpret a similar phrase
here. It is very common for those who do not read the
original tongues to focus upon single words, as you did.
But words are often used in phrases that change their
meaning and usage. That is the case here. The
Greek term didwmi is used along with a form of the
verb eimi. In this case, we have a perfect
participial form of didwmi joined with a present
(subjunctive) form of eimi. In Greek grammar,
when you have a present form of eimi with a perfect
participle, the resulting tense for the periphrastic
construction is a perfect (see William Mounce, Basics of
Biblical Greek, p. 277 for a summary that will be
helpful in analyzing your statements on Acts 13:48 as well).
This is why the NASB renders the phrase “it has been
granted.” The NIV goes a bit farther, “unless the
Father has enabled him.” In both cases, the idiomatic
flavor of the term (the current koine standard Greek
lexicon, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and
Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd
edition, edited by Bauer, Danker, Arndt and Gingrich
---mercifully abbreviated as BDAG --- gives no less
than seventeen categories of uses of the term, many of them
in conjunction with other terms in idiomatic phrases) is
brought out. You seek to say that the text actually
says that no one can come to Christ unless God the Father
gives them an opportunity to believe. You make the
“giving” something that is on-going, a present-tense
concept, and you make the object of what is given a “chance”
to believe. But the text contradicts you in two major
ways: a) the periphrastic tense meaning is perfect,
not present, matching the perfect tense of “given” at John
6:39, and b) the object of what is “given” is provided by
the text. The periphrastic is in the subjunctive
because if follows ean me, “unless.” The
“unless” points us back to the preceding context,
specifically, “no one is able to come to me.” It is
the coming to Christ that is given by the Father, not a
“chance to believe.” This is, in fact, the very same
truth enunciated in 6:37-39: all that the Father gives the
Son will come to the Son; the Son will save all who are so
given to Him (6:39), and no man is able to come to Him
unless it has been given/granted Him by the Father (making
the same connection I have defended above: that those who
are given are then drawn).
The truth is, Dave, John 6:65 is simply
a summary statement of what we saw in John 6:37-45.
Your comments on it miss the mark because you do not engage
in an exegetical study of the text. And as long as men
and women take the text seriously and engage in the deep and
fair study of its structure and meaning, they will come to
see the great truth of God’s sovereign grace.
This letter is getting rather long, and
I still have some other important points to address, so I
will conclude the examination of the errors in chapter 20
with this fascinating assertion on your part:
Christ’s words, “No man can
come to me except the Father draw him,” are not the same as
White’s interpretive “No man is able to come to me.”
Christ is not denying either the necessity or capability on
man’s part of active acquiescence and faith. He is
actually saying, “Men can come to me if the
Father draws them --- i.e., if given them of the
Father. (p. 346).
First, you call it “interpretive” to
render ou dunatai as “not able”? I would very
much like to see you defend that assertion upon some kind of
actual lexical basis, Dave. We both know you could not
even begin to defend such a statement. But what is
even more troubling is the fact that you then turn John 6:44
on its head, insisting that Jesus is not saying “No man is
able” but “every man is able.” See, since you believe
God draws all, then you are, in fact, teaching and preaching
the exact opposite of the Lord in John 6:44.
Your every attempt to refute this passage has failed,
completely. I do hope you will listen to this
refutation and retract your errant teaching on this subject.
John 3:16 Freed From Tradition
Dave, I think we can agree on the fact that you believe
your interpretation of John 3:16 is the key to the
entire controversy. Note I said your interpretation.
I do not get the idea that you realize that your view is not
the only possible way of reading the words of the Lord
Jesus, nor, to be honest, do I get the feeling that you have
engaged in the task of exegeting even John 3:16. It is
your tradition to interpret it in a particular
fashion. That tradition includes two very important
elements: 1) the idea that “world” means every single
individual person, so that God loves each person equally
(resulting in a denial of any particularity in God’s love,
even in His redemptive love), and 2) that the term
“whosoever” includes within its meaning a denial of
particularity or election. Your assumption of these
ideas underlies pretty much the entirety of your book.
Before I chose to write you this open
letter, I began an article on John 3:16 and Acts 13:48.
I only completed the first section of the exegesis of John
3:16, and was about to address your statements about my
allegedly “twisting” the passage, so I will insert what I
wrote here, and pick up with the letter itself on the other
side...
Sometimes the passages we know best we
know least. That is, when we hear a passage repeated
in a particular context over and over and over again, we
tend to lose sight of its real meaning in its original
setting. This is surely the case with John 3:16, for
it is one of the most commonly cited passages in evangelical
preaching. And yet, how often is it actually subjected
to exegesis? Hardly ever. Its meaning is
assumed rather than confirmed. I would
like to offer a brief exegesis of the passage and a
confirming cross-reference to a parallel passage in John’s
first epistle.
Exegesis
We are uncertain just where in this
passage the words of the Lord Jesus end, and John’s begin.
Opinions differ. But as John did not believe it necessary to
indicate any break, we do not need to be concerned about it.
In either case the words flow naturally from the discussion
Jesus begins with Nicodemus concerning what it means to be
born again, or from above. But as every text without a
context is merely a pretext, note the preceding verses:
