Is the Calvinist-Arminian Debate Really Important?

00:00:00.000 | Is the Calvinist-Arminian debate overblown?

00:00:07.760 | It's a question today from a young man, a listener to the podcast, who writes in to

00:00:11.900 | ask us this.

00:00:13.120 | "Hello Pastor John, I've argued about predestination and free will with fellow believers for years.

00:00:18.320 | I'm a five-point Calvinist myself, but lately these conversations have grown tiresome to

00:00:23.160 | me.

00:00:24.160 | No amount of debate seems to settle all the questions, and I recently read a letter by

00:00:27.720 | C.S. Lewis where he called the Calvinist-Arminian debate pretty much pointless because it only

00:00:32.600 | answers questions about this life, answers meaningless in eternity."

00:00:37.520 | Lewis wrote this, "Both the statement that our final destination is already settled,

00:00:42.720 | Calvinism, and the view that it still may be either heaven or hell, Arminianism, seem

00:00:48.800 | to me to imply the ultimate reality of time, which I don't believe in.

00:00:54.040 | The controversy is one I can't join on either side, for I think that in the real, timeless

00:00:59.520 | world it is meaningless."

00:01:02.120 | Pastor John, I think Lewis raises a fair question here.

00:01:06.560 | Is this whole debate time-bound?

00:01:09.600 | And even within time, I find myself more and more asking, what is the real-life fallout?

00:01:14.680 | Is the practical and spiritual value of Calvinism for this life significantly better?

00:01:20.520 | And if so, how?

00:01:22.600 | Oh, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, my friend, my mentor.

00:01:27.960 | Let's start here.

00:01:29.120 | There is a huge difference between saying on the one hand, "Fruitless debates have

00:01:34.520 | grown tiresome," which I can totally understand and would not encourage, and saying on the

00:01:40.480 | other hand, "I'm not seeing the real-life fallout or the practical spiritual value of

00:01:46.280 | Calvinism in this life."

00:01:47.800 | Those are radically different sentences, and the last one is tragic, tragic.

00:01:54.720 | And I hope such a theological, personal malaise doesn't fall on me, and I hope it can be lifted

00:02:01.280 | from our young friend.

00:02:04.680 | So first a word about Lewis, bless his heart and rest his soul in heaven, and then about

00:02:12.880 | Calvinism and time—that's the issue that he raised, time—and as I go along, I will

00:02:19.720 | try to show for our friend the preciousness of these things.

00:02:28.240 | I have read more of C.S. Lewis than any other author on the planet except Jonathan Edwards.

00:02:37.160 | I love C.S. Lewis.

00:02:39.540 | He has made a great difference in my life.

00:02:43.600 | But one thing you will look for in vain in all the writings of C.S. Lewis, and that is

00:02:51.080 | careful, serious, biblical exposition.

00:02:55.920 | We have no idea how he did it.

00:02:58.520 | I presume he did it.

00:03:00.360 | We have to guess how C.S. Lewis read his Bible, because he does not show us, which means he

00:03:07.600 | comes at biblical theological questions more philosophically than he does exegetically.

00:03:15.440 | This is certainly the case when it comes to Calvinism versus Arminianism.

00:03:20.280 | As far as I can tell, he simply sweeps aside dozens of specific, clear, biblical sentences

00:03:30.440 | with the philosophical wand of timelessness.

00:03:35.200 | Anybody who reads the Bible carefully and seeks to submit to the Bible's own logic—not

00:03:40.640 | an alien philosophical presupposition, but seeks to submit to the Bible's own logic—will

00:03:45.560 | be content with Lewis's way of handling the issue of Calvinism and Arminianism.

00:03:51.840 | It cannot satisfy if you are a Bible-saturated person who takes sentences, real, live, meaning-carrying

00:03:59.680 | sentences seriously when you read the Bible.

00:04:03.480 | Here's what I would say to Lewis.

00:04:05.160 | Let's just pretend that I'm now talking to C.S. Lewis about the five points of Calvinism.

00:04:11.840 | Four of them, I would say, Mr. Lewis, four of them do not address the time issue at all.

00:04:19.480 | And the fifth one addresses the time issue because God made it address the time issue.

00:04:27.060 | God put the "pre" in predestination.

00:04:29.640 | Man didn't decide to do that.

00:04:31.360 | God did that.

00:04:32.360 | And he had good reasons for doing it, not to be swept away by the wand of timelessness.

00:04:37.880 | So let me take them one at a time.

00:04:40.160 | Total depravity.

00:04:41.500 | The issue is, at the point of my conversion, was I dead?

00:04:47.440 | Was I dead?

00:04:49.400 | Was I utterly incapable of seeing or savoring Jesus Christ as my supreme treasure?

00:04:56.080 | Answer, yes, I was.

00:04:58.720 | I was dead, blind, spiritually incapable of believing on Jesus.

00:05:06.400 | First Corinthians 2.14, the natural person, that John Piper, does not accept the things

00:05:12.240 | of the Spirit of God.

00:05:13.240 | No way, I'm stiff in arm and totally in my deadness and fallenness and blindness.

00:05:18.760 | They are folly to me.

00:05:20.400 | I'm not able to understand them.

00:05:22.600 | They are spiritually discerned, and I don't have the Holy Spirit.

00:05:25.560 | I hate God, and I love myself, and I am in bondage.

00:05:31.480 | And the question is not one of time.

00:05:35.120 | And the answer makes all the difference in the world about whether you praise yourself

00:05:39.800 | or praise your God in speechless wonder that you are now a lover of Jesus, that you can

00:05:45.920 | see the light of the glory of the gospel.

00:05:48.520 | John Piper now sees the light of the glory of the gospel.

00:05:51.800 | How did that happen?

00:05:53.980 | If you think you were only partially incapable of faith and just needed a little divine nudge,

00:06:01.400 | your amazement, your humility, your worship, your reverence will be hindered.

00:06:08.600 | How dead and how helpless were you when God saved you?

00:06:13.280 | Come on, Lewis, come on.

00:06:15.360 | Talk about First Corinthians 2.14.

00:06:17.560 | Talk about Romans 8.7.

00:06:19.120 | Talk about Ephesians 2.4.

00:06:20.680 | Talk about Second Corinthians 4.4.

00:06:22.680 | Give me your philosophical wand of timelessness.

00:06:25.760 | Talk to me about the deadness of the human soul.

00:06:29.120 | That's number one.

00:06:30.120 | Number two, irresistible grace.

00:06:33.480 | The question, Mr. Lewis, is what happened on that bus ride that you described in "Surprised

00:06:40.920 | by Joy," the one that you began as an unbeliever, and to your own amazement, you ended as a

00:06:48.920 | believer?

00:06:49.920 | What happened?

00:06:50.920 | The Bible is not silent about what happened.

00:06:53.520 | It is not left to your philosophical speculation.

00:06:56.920 | It goes like this.

00:06:58.160 | The God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," shone in your heart to give the

00:07:05.160 | light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, Second Corinthians

00:07:09.960 | 4.6.

00:07:11.120 | God did a creative miracle in your life, Mr. Lewis, just as much as when he called the

00:07:17.000 | universe out of nothing.

00:07:19.340 | He took out the heart of stone and put in the heart of flesh.

00:07:22.400 | He raised you from the dead and seated you in the heavenly places with Christ.

00:07:26.400 | He opened your eyes to give heed to the truth.

00:07:29.320 | And in the very moment when you passed from death to life, God was decisive, not you.

00:07:36.880 | You did not impart life to your dead self.

00:07:40.000 | This is not an issue of time, Mr. Lewis.

00:07:42.880 | This is an issue of worship.

00:07:44.560 | To whom will you give glory for your decisive passage from unbelieving death to believing

00:07:51.780 | life?

00:07:52.780 | Number three, limited atonement, or better, definite atonement.

00:07:58.380 | Here the question is not time.

00:08:00.820 | The question is whether the new covenant miracle that happens to every Christian when their

00:08:07.340 | dead heart, our dead heart, is replaced with a new heart, whether that new covenant miracle

00:08:13.100 | was definitely purchased for them by the death of Christ, but was not so purchased for everyone.

00:08:21.340 | That's the issue.

00:08:22.740 | Or everyone would have a new heart if it was purchased that way for everyone.

00:08:27.580 | Jesus called his blood the blood of the covenant, Matthew 26, 28.

00:08:32.540 | The new covenant, he called it the new covenant, Luke 22, 20.

00:08:36.940 | And what the new covenant promised was that the old unbelieving rebellious heart of C.S.

00:08:41.780 | Lewis and John Piper would be replaced by God sovereignly with a new soft believing

00:08:47.500 | heart and that the law of God would be written—we don't write it, he wrote it—on that heart

00:08:53.660 | so that we do from the heart what we're called to do, like believe and obey.

00:08:59.940 | This was all secured when we were purchased by the blood of the new covenant.

00:09:05.260 | When Christ died, he secured a perfect, complete redemption, including the undeserved mercy

00:09:13.860 | of our conversion and faith.

00:09:16.420 | This is not a question of time.

00:09:18.700 | This is a question of what Christ achieved for his people on the cross.

00:09:24.480 | Did he lay down his life for the sheep, John 10, 11?

00:09:28.200 | Did he ransom the children of God, John 11, 52?

00:09:31.940 | Did he ransom for himself a people scattered among the peoples, Revelation 5, 9, 10?

00:09:38.580 | Or didn't he?

00:09:39.580 | That's the issue.

00:09:40.580 | Number four, perseverance of the saints.

00:09:43.940 | This is not a question of timelessness or time.

00:09:47.860 | This is a question about whether you and I will wake up a believer tomorrow morning.

00:09:56.140 | Will I?

00:09:57.140 | And I cannot imagine, for our young friend, by the way, who wrote in this question, I

00:10:01.180 | cannot imagine anything more immediately relevant to me when I go to bed at night or think about

00:10:07.900 | it all day long than the answer to the question, "Will I wake up a believer, heaven bound,

00:10:13.780 | tomorrow morning, or won't I?"

00:10:15.420 | Jude is so blown away by the glory of God's sovereign keeping, keeping, that the greatest

00:10:25.540 | doxology in the Bible is crafted to extol this work of God's sovereignty over our fickle

00:10:35.120 | free will, so-called.

00:10:38.080 | If God left me to my fickle free will, I'd be out of here, prone to wander.

00:10:43.260 | Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love, take my heart, oh Lord, and seal it,

00:10:48.420 | chain it, bind it, keep me.

00:10:50.820 | So here's what Jude says, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, keep you,

00:10:57.140 | and to present you blameless."

00:10:58.940 | He's going to keep you and present you blameless, sovereignly.

00:11:02.820 | Yes, if He doesn't do it, it isn't going to happen.

00:11:06.180 | And then he says, "To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and

00:11:12.060 | majesty and dominion and authority forever and ever, amen."

00:11:18.020 | That's how amazed Jude was that God would not let him go.

00:11:23.900 | God wouldn't let him fall into unbelief.

00:11:26.360 | God would not let his vaunted free will have the last word.

00:11:32.000 | This is not a matter of time.

00:11:34.380 | This is a matter of sweet assurance that tomorrow morning I will wake up with a heart for God.

00:11:42.100 | Lastly, unconditional election.

00:11:46.380 | Here we meet time, Ephesians 1, 4.

00:11:50.300 | He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless

00:11:57.380 | before Him.

00:11:58.380 | In love He predestined us, predestined us.

00:12:01.500 | So before the foundation of the world, predestined us for adoption.

00:12:05.780 | In love He predestined us for adoption, predestined us to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ

00:12:13.900 | according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

00:12:19.700 | Paul's aim here is to inflame the praise of the glory of the grace of God.

00:12:27.740 | That's his purpose.

00:12:28.740 | That's the goal of these three verses, 4, 5, 6.

00:12:33.260 | The sovereign, saving grace of God that is based not on our so-called free will but on

00:12:40.260 | the "purpose of His will."

00:12:45.260 | Paul intends to put God's saving grace outside our control so that when all history is said

00:12:54.720 | and done, the song of the ages will be, "To the praise of the glory of God's free, invincible

00:13:02.980 | grace," so that no human might boast except in the Lord.

00:13:09.900 | And I would just say in closing that if these five realities are not humbling, emboldening,

00:13:21.140 | stabilizing, worship-inflaming, sacrifice-empowering, joy-igniting, what we ought to do is not ignore

00:13:33.900 | them, but get on our knees and cry out for the eyes of our heart to be opened.

00:13:43.020 | Glorious and amazing biblical realities.

00:13:44.780 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:13:46.540 | It's so good to rehearse those five points of Calvinism, as they're called.

00:13:50.340 | And speaking of how Calvinism shows its impact practically in this life, see Pastor John's

00:13:55.420 | 2002 article titled "Ten Effects of Believing in the Five Points of Calvinism."

00:14:00.940 | It's "Ten Effects of Believing in the Five Points of Calvinism."

00:14:04.340 | And speaking of the Calvinism of C.S.

00:14:05.580 | Lewis, there's a lot more to say on this topic.

00:14:08.180 | See Doug Wilson's plenary session at our 2013 National Conference.

00:14:12.540 | That session was titled "The Romantic Rationalist, God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of

00:14:17.940 | C.S.

00:14:18.940 | Lewis."

00:14:19.940 | Worth checking out the article, the session, both of which can be found at DesiringGod.org.

00:14:23.940 | Thanks for listening.

00:14:25.620 | If you haven't done so, get our new episodes as we release them by subscribing to Ask Pastor

00:14:29.240 | John in your favorite podcast app in Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.

00:14:34.220 | To find all 1,500 of our past episodes or to submit a new question of your own, go online

00:14:38.580 | to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:14:39.580 | Well, 1 John 5:12 tells us this, "Whoever has the Son has life, and whoever does not

00:14:50.580 | have the Son of God does not have life."

00:14:54.420 | But what exactly does it mean to have the Son of God?

00:14:57.460 | How do we come into possession of Jesus?

00:15:01.020 | That's what we will look at next time on Wednesday.

00:15:03.020 | I'm Tony Reinke.

00:15:04.020 | We'll see you then.

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Is the Calvinist-Arminian Debate Really Important?

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