J.I. Packer is an Anglican. Currently, he is the theologian emeritus of the Anglican Church in North America (and was ordained an Anglican Priest in 1953). Any theology he defends, he does because that's what he believes is in the Bible. The English Reformers who wrote the 39 Articles of Religion were not Calvinists either. They expressed what they believed to be Biblical theology which by nature was similar to what Calvin/Luther believed to be the understanding of Jesus Christ as expressed in the Bible. Discussion here is pretty good. However, I'd say that there could be several truths at the same time which seem contradictory to our human mind yet they are in sync as God sees it. The peace that God grants surpasses all human understanding (Phil 4:7). At a certain point in time, there is no need to fit God into the context of human understanding.
This discussion, from my side of the pond, seems to be based on overly specific niceties of particular verses or engaging on a level with the unneccessary knots of the Hypercalvinists who have to tie up every loose end in Scripture. And a highly specific reference to one discourse in Romans. That is the importance of Packer's perspective - which I read as a youth and 25 years later find have been borne out in my life, ministry and increasing knowledge of myself and God. So let me defend Packers approach. Packer"s "two rails meet at eternity" thing is a metaphor. It should not be engaged with literally! Eternity represents the mind of God and the rails stand for human choice and for Gods election. The metaphor describes how two logically opposing theological principles are not a humanly resolvable paradox but an unsolvable antimony. The point of the metaphor is that the antinomy is mystery which is only understood in the mind of God, whose perpective is infinite. Thus both Sprouls wooden ridiculing of it and Flowers own rebuttal are taking it in a way Packer did not mean. Because the hypercalvinists like Sproul have every answer tied up so Flowers appears to be countering using the same method. The Bible doesn't give us warrant to tie up every loose end. A magisterial mind like Packer's is not avoiding the question because it wasn't a hot-button issue as Leighton suggests. Packers appeal to prayer and thanksgiving are general theological principles which lead us to the conclusion that only God saves, not merely that man repents and God saves. God grants humans the human bit they do: but not in a way we understand. To quote Paul, if we had to cooperate with grace, "grace would not be grace." Call it Lower or Evangelical or soft Calvinism if you want. Call it Arminianism if you want. Romans and the Jews is probably a big digression. Without it we can still say that God opens hearts (Lydia) faith is a gift (Ephesians) and God grants to the Gentiles also salvation unto life (Acts), dead men cannot raise themselves and the Lord knows his sheep (The Gospels). These are the kind of texts which establish the doctrine of a damaged free will where desiring God is concerned. Finally God did not ordain some to eternal life and some to eternal death like some number crunching grim reaper. All have sinned and fall short and the whole world silenced. All are in effect ordained to hell. That God chose to save any is a gift of his mercy. I have nothing in myself to recommend me. I Philip Joy am the worst of all sinners and the least deserving human being. My choice for Christ was not meritorious as I soon discovered when I read John's Gospel "you did not choose me, I chose you..." Now if that verse is meant only for the apostles as agents you would be forced to say that all the other promises is the upper room discourse (esp the coming of the Spirit, many rooms etc) are not for every believer, let alone potentially all people. In sum don't take Packer for a fool in his metaphor, don't get into tying up every loose end like Hyer-Arminians and look at the big picture theologically. Man in sin cannot respond to God until he is spiritually quickened (Nicodemus). The cross achieves this and every other grace I possess. God saves and not one brick of the New Jerusalem will be built by humanity. Caritas x
Glory To GOD!!! Thank you Leighton Flowers for sharing this! GOD is love! The greatest of these is LOVE! Also - to say GOD is Righteous and HOLY - and then say HE is the author of evil - is blasphemous!
One more thing......God has been God waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before John Calvin was born or lived. That's the God you want to meet. Not the God according to John Calvin. It's so sad to see people all their lives study about God. He doesn't want to be studied....he wants to be known. People remain in all denominations from 5 years old to 95 years old. Have never met Christ, and know no more about Him than they did at 5 years old. They just assume the preacher, priest, bishop, pastor etc, are telling them the truth. Sad......Jesus is easy.....just come to Him yourself and receive the Holy Spirit, then the bible will read as you wrote it yourself. And you will know Calvinism is wrong.
Anti-Calvinist friends: I have a couple absolutely meaningless but amusing facts from recent movies: 1. In "Deepwater Horizon" (about the BP oil blowout from 2010), the evil cajun BP engineer who cut safety corners to save money looks *just* like James White. 2. In "Life" (about us finding an implacably dangerous life form on Mars and bringing it back to the ISS), the alien is called *"Calvin"* . Both are also very good movies, but that presupposes you like factual disaster flicks in the first case, and good but violent sci-fi on the other.
Leighton, I commend you for increasing boldness in stating the obvious: where we see a contradiction, the quickest and clearest method to expose it is call it such.
Once again I'm left wondering whether Dr. Flowers is just lacking in his understanding of the things he is talking about or being dishonest in this video. Let's start with his claim that Packer describes sovereignty and responsibility as being like two parallel rails which would never meet. Unless he backs this up with a reference, it is a worthless attack and irrelevant to the case. Packer would, probably, agree, however, with Spurgeon, who wrote: "These two truths, I do not believe, can ever be welded into one upon any human anvil, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring." Secondly, Packer clearly states in _Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God_ (the book behind Dr. Flowers quotes) that by _antimony_ he means: "an *appearance* of contradiction". In other words, that A = A (even though it *appears* that it does not), *not* that A = notA. Hence Flowers' argument collapses *unless* he can clearly show that Packer's argument is false, which *he does not!* Strangely, Flowers _tries_ to use Piper to support the accusation of Packer holding a contradiction. Piper disagrees with Packer in that he holds there is no *apparent contradiction* between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, but agrees that *there is no contradiction.* Flowers' argument draws on such self-contradictory statements as: _"Of course we want God to _*_save_*_ them [those for whom we pray], but we believe that God does so through the means that he has established, which is by presenting the truth, bringing conviction and that a person _*_makes a choice"_* So, which is it? That God *saves* them - makes them believers, heading for heaven - or that God brings them to *make a choice,* to take or leave as they want? Do we, as Christians, really pray, "God please bring my child/parent/friend to the point of making a free choice, but make sure that you don't infringe on his/her free choice"? I think that we pray, as Packer puts it, "that God will, quite simply and decisively, save them: that He will open the eyes of their understanding, soften their hard hearts, renew their natures, and move their wills to receive the Saviour." Next, we get the old anti-Calvinist canard, the misdefinition of responsibility: "Hearers of the Gospel are responsible, _in other words, they are held _*_as if they are able to respond one way or another,_* for their reaction." Responsible *does not imply* the ability to do something or not. If I owe someone money, am I only responsible for that if I have enough money to pay them back? Our moral responsibility to God *says nothing, either way,* about our ability to do what pleases him. I will have to skip past Dr Flowers' massive eisegesis of the Biblical text to make *only the Jews at the time of Christ* both under God's sovereign control, but also personally responsible and to re-read Romans under an external authority, to twist the words Paul wrote! Unfortunately, there is not enough time now for them. Finally, I would note the way that Dr. Flowers does *the very thing* Packer warns about. Flowers approves of the two errors Packer notes: "to assert man's responsibility in a way that excludes God from being sovereign, or to affirm God's sovereignty in a way that destroys the responsiblility of man." He then proceeds to *make the first of these errors!* Flowers asserts that responsibility _must imply free will,_ and so has to throw out Packer's definition of sovereignty. Far from showing Packers "Lower Calvinism" to be "a contradiction", Dr Flowers simply shows his continued *philosophical commitment* to man's free will, with its inevitable results in the misuse of scripture in order to make it fit in with that commitment.
Think AboutIt -The Calvinist view is so obviously wrong and it's quite simple! So simple a child can understand! The great commission - says to go out into all the world and preach the Gospel!!! Why would we be given this "great commission" in the first place - if it was already decided - A= not A. Also - "The greatest of these is LOVE"!!! Remember that!!!? Now it's not very loving for man to run around claiming he was chosen and the other guy - unfortunately wasn't!!! You are loved by GOD - but he wasn't loved by GOD - HMMN - that sounds more like a person who has been brainwashed and belongs to a sect!!! (In the end times - some will depart from the faith)
1) J. I. Packer isn’t a southern baptist, he’s Anglican. 2) Calvinists have issues to deal with in regards to the falling away Scripture teaches of. Yeshua says that even the elect could fall away, as do the Apostles. For Calvinists to claim that “oh well they didn’t really believe in the first place”, is a cop out response. Not even Calvin was solidly Calvinist on his death bed (just like I’m not solidly Arminist).
Dr. Flowers misrepresents Packer's view of sovereignty as explained in his book CONCISE THEOLOGY, pp. 33-34, from which this, from his chapter entitled "Sovereignty": "That God's rational creatures, angelic and human, have free agency (power of personal decision as to what they shall do) is clear in Scripture throughout; we would not be moral beings, answerable to God the judge, were it not so, nor would it then be possible to distinguish, as Scripture does, between the bad purposes of human agents and the good purposes of God, who sovereignly overrules human action as a planned means to his own goals (Gen. 50;20; Acts 2:23; 13-26-39) Yet the fact of free agency confronts us with mystery, inasmuch as God's control over our free, self-determined activities is as complete as it is over anything else, and how this can be we do not know. Regularly, however, God uses his sovereignty by letting things take their course, rather that by miraculous intrusions of a disruptive sort."
I got as far as the criticism of the use of the term "parallel." Referring back to definitions presented in an introductory philosophy course, there was offered a distinction between a sentence and a proposition. A sentence is a grammatical expression of a proposition. A proposition is a formulation of a claim that can either be true or false. Sentences using the same words may express different propositions depending on the sense of the terms, and the context. A definition of the term "parallel" in geometry does not necessarily apply to its use as an adjective describing abstract terms only figuratively related in geometric terms. There is no logical contradiction in saying that something figuratively parallel is not literally parallel. Whether or not the conclusion based on this argument is true, the argument itself is specious. Perhaps it may still be supported by other arguments, but I have lost patience for this.
The Reaction Or calculus where A can ASYMPTOTICALLY APPROACH B, while, technically, never quite EQUALLING B. Even geometry only holds true within a certain construct, such as a plane (two dimensional space). On a curved surface, for example, the angles of a triangle don't always equal 180°. Similarly, a "straight line" is often a small segment of a circle. (Just try walking in. a straight line without a compass or other external reference.
Here we go with definitions again. Space is curved, I guess. So then why isn't it reasonable to say the earth is flat? The obfuscations of scientists and mathematicians are bad enough without applying them to religion. Children have to be brainwashed to accept that repeating decimals equal rational numbers. You have to either ignore the infinitesimal remainder or redefine division, equality, or numbers to substantiate that claim. Another egregious example: plus.maths.org/content/infinity-or-just-112
From Norman Geisler's CHOSEN BUT FREE: God's Sovereignty (whereby He knowingly determines all that comes to pass and determinately knows the same) is not a contradiction with the free will of man. According to the sense of God's vantage point (the eternal now) there is no contradiction with free will according to the sense of man's vantage point in time. No contradiction, just as there is no contradiction in the Trinity: One God (Being) in three persons. The Trinity is a MYSTERY that we can apprehend, but cannot comprehend! The foregoing is not a case of A and not A in at the same time and in the same sense! READ CHOSEN BUT FREE!
This seems more like a misrepresentation of Packer for whatever prejudice that remains known to Flowers and compelled him to make this ad hominem argument.
There is no reason for an adversary if Calvinism is true. What's the point? But we all deal with Satan.....therefore Calvinism is misleading with no power.
