Conversations in Calvinism

ἐκληρώθημεν (eklerothemen) in Ephesians 1:11 means obtain an inheritance, but comes from a word related to casting lots.  Dan and Turretin Fan discuss this topic. (briefly)

Turretinfan and I discussed “for from him and through him and to him are all things” from Romans 11:36 and “In him we live and move and have our being” from Acts 17:28.  I argued that God’s creation and providence, including permission and concurrence, were sufficient to understand these text.  Turretinfan disconcurred and viewed concurrence as an evasion of Paul’s language, which he took to be God’s causal sufficiency for all things. We had an interesting exchange as to whether the “in” from Acts 17:28 was about location and therefore God’s omnipresence or instrumentality and therefore God’s causality.

Turretinfan and I disconcurred on God’s creating the wicked for the day of trouble is God’s reprobation of individuals to hell or God’s arranging disasters like Job’s or like wicked nations attacking Israel.  We discussed the KJV on Proverbs 16:1, which seems to indicate God forms plans within man’s heart by saying “the preparation of the heart in man…is from the Lord” compared to the ESV which seems to indicate men make their own plans by saying “the plans of the heart belong to man”.  We concurred that Proverbs 16:4 seems to imply God has a pre-creation plan for wicked people although we noted an Open Theist reading might be like “if someone becomes wicked, I will punish them”.  

 We also briefly discussed the radical translation difference for Proverbs 26:10 “The great God who formed all things both rewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors.” (KJV) compared to “Like an archer who wounds everyone is one who hires a passing fool or drunkard.” (ESV)

In this episode, we concurred that “predestination”, in 1 Corinthians 2:7 refers to Christ, the cross and plan of salvation. We disconcurred that 1 Corinthians 1:24 refers to an effectual call. We concurred that “called” means more than just invited, like in the phrase “many are called but few are chosen”, because “called”, in 1 Corinthians seems exclusive to believers. We disconcurred that “called” has a group aspect as it seems to have in 1 Corinthians 1:9’s expression “called into the fellowship of His Son”. We disconcurred that the usage kletos in 1 Cor. 1:24 could mean convocation or assembly as it does in the Septuagint for Exodus 12:16 or Leviticus 23:2. We concurred that Clement of Alexandria was explaining why 1 Cor. 1:24 does not refer to an effectual call in Stromata, book 1, Chapter 18, when he said: “All having been therefore called, those who are willing to obey have been named "called.”

This episode was about God’s middle knowledge, rather than a specific verse, although we did discuss Exodus 3:19, Deuteronomy 7:3-4 and 1 Kings 11:2, 9. Our primary point of disconcurrance was, if theistic causal determinism is true, and assuming God creates us and sets up the laws of nature such that secondary causes like our “strongest desires” or our “motives” determine our will in an analogous way to physical force like a rock breaking glass, would God’s knowledge of our voluntary actions in counterfactual circumstances be part of God’s natural knowledge? We also discussed Irenaeus’ comments that God knew Pharaoh wouldn’t believe based on Exodus 3:19 in Against Heresies, Book 4, Chapter 29, Paragraph 2 and we disconcurred on if Irenaeus held to some early form of middle knowledge. Although philosophical discussions are fun and important, we sort of jumped ahead and plan to get back to exegetical questions on more fundamental disconcurrances next time.

In this episode we discussed predestination in Acts 2:23, 3:18-20 and 4:28.  Our main points of disconcurrence were on if 1) Christ death was predestined or both His death and the sinful acts involved, 2) if both is predestination the same as predetermined and 3) if so, does the predetermination of some things imply everything is predetermined?

In this episode, we briefly discussed the Belgic Confession Article 24, which seems to teach faith precedes regeneration. Then we continued our discussion on Ephesians 1, focusing on the predestination language in Ephesians 1:11. We went overview of Arminian views on predestination (differences in the object of predestination (foreknowledge based or corporate) and differences in how predestination works (middle knowledge, will setting…). Then we started word studies on the NT usage of destine and predestination. We disconcurred on: 1) does God predestine who will believe, 2) does God predestine everything, and 3) is predestination the same as determinism?

We all agree God chose us in Christ, but what does that mean? Can a choice be neither unconditional nor random?  Who is the 'us' given it was before creation?  Is 'in Christ" used in reference to union with Christ or instrumentality?  How can we be in Christ and then chosen to be holy? Dan and Turretinfan disconcur on these questions and more in this episode covering Ephesians 1:4-5.

What do you get when a Reformed Baptist (our guest Robert Wiesner) discusses the order of faith and regeneration and its relation to baptism with an Arminian Baptist (Dan) and a Reformed Presbyterian (Turretinfan)?  Disconcurance all around!  The Baptists disagreed with the Presbyterian on infant Baptism, seeing Baptism as an expression of faith. We all agreed that man is totally depraved and needs grace, but what does that grace look like? Robert and Dan disagreed with Turretinfan that regeneration precedes faith.  The Robert and Turretinfan disagreed with Dan that grace is resistible, instead seeing an effectual call. There was some really good discussion around the meaning of regeneration in Titus 3:5, the heart transplant in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the gift of faith and the drawing in John 6. Thanks to Robert for writing on and discussing the topic of how to precisely define regeneration and the order of faith and regeneration.

In this episode, with our guest, David Louis, we discussed 2 Peter 3:9 – God is longsuffering towards you, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance.  We disconcurred that the "you" is the church Peter wrote to or the elect, including those not yet born. We disconcurred that the church needs to repent or perish. We disconcurred on if the phase “not willing that any should perish” is a general rule applied to this situation or if it should be restricted to the "you" Peter addresses.  We disconcurred that God's long-suffering could include those who end up perishing, like Noah’s preaching prior to the flood discussed in 1 Peter 3:20. Even though Peter seems to borrow language from Sirach 18, we disconcurred that, Sirach’s use of "all flesh" means mankind. Even though Ezekiel 18 teaches God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but rather that they should turn and live, we disconcurred this fits a general understanding of 2 Peter 3:9. We disconcurred that the Bible uses general language to describe the extent of Christ's death and God's will to save, but restricted language when talking about predestination or actually forgiving a person's sins or adopting them into God's family. We disconcurred that Peter was addressing misunderstandings Romans 9:22 (i.e. that some were denying God’s will to save and misunderstanding the connection between God's longsuffering and salvation).