My Correspondence With a Monergist Theologian, His Fifth Reply, plus My Comments and Unmailed Rebuttal



  Looks like I had the case pretty well wrapped up. Biblically, historically, and logically, Synergism had overcome each of his rhetorical obstacles and shown firm agreement with scripture, while Monergism was left with plenty it still could not account for. This was the last reply I received (quotes from previous posts are in italics, my comments are in green).




We hold that man is never so near grace as when he begins to feel he can do nothing at all. When he says, 'I can pray, I can believe, I can do this, and I can do the other,' marks of self-sufficiency and arrogance are on his brow." - C.H. Spurgeon

Dear JCT

The entire historical subject and debate about the will and whether it is free or not rests entirely upon the concept of the natural man. Historically when Luther wrote Bondage of the Will the word "bondage" was referring to sin. When Calvin wrote his Bondage and liberation of the will, it referred to liberation from sin and its bondage. TAnd why do they speak of the will as free or in bondage to sin in this way? Because this is the way the Bible itself speaks of freedom and bondage. It is best to define freedom the way the Scripture do because it is our authority. See John chapter 8 in Jesus dicussion with the jews. They are angrey with him because he says they are slaves to sin and only he can set them free. A slave is not free by definition... and the scripture is speaking of the will, because it is the will that we use to commit sin.

When someone says man has a free will, we must ask, free from what? Free from limitations? no. free from sin? no. free from his own nature? no. free from God's decree? no. free from coersion? YES.

You and Iagree that when we make choices we are not coerced. But coersion is not the only kind of non-freedom. Just because he is free from coersion does not make him free in other respects. In the case of the unregenerate he is not free from the bondage to a corruption of nature. So the natural man has no free will. This is established. It is Biblical and is a subject spoken of over and over in the Bible. Whenever there is mention of sin, it is speaking of mans limmitation. He cannot obey the sommandements because of his corrupt nature.

As for making voluntary choices because of who we are by nature, in this we are fully agreed. That is why Jesus told the Jews again in John 8 that they do not believe because they are not of God ... that by nature they are sons of the devil so of course they are trying to kill him. They do what they are by nature. John 10 Jesus says the same. His sheep follow him and can heart his voice. But some do not belive because they are not his sheep. The nature of the person determines his choice. Jesus further says a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. A thornbush cannot produce figs. Jesus was not interested in botany. He was speaking of people and said MAKE the treee good and its fruit will be good.

>>>>One does not 'have the Son' without faith in Him.

No one ever argued this point. We are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit through faith. Regeneration is never spoken of in the text of Scripture as an imperative, however. We believe because we are born of God which John1:13, 1 John 5:1 and John 6:65 plainly show. There is no temporal sequence of events here. When God called the world into existence from nothing there was not time that passed. It existed because he spoke. Spiritual resurrection is the same.

There is no evidence whatsoever in the Scripture which shows that an unregenerate person can love Christ. There is no evidence in the Scripture for the idea that your prevenient grace places us in place above our total depravity into some neutral zone where we can choose. This is your philosophical speculation. On the other hand I have plan Scripture which validates my position. What does your grace do for an unsaved person hearing the gospel. Show me you answer by citing Scripture.

You have misapprehended Spurgeon's quote. You should read it carefully because it means the opposite of what you want it to. IN many places spurgeon plainly believed that regeneration prededes faith. Here is one I found:

"Faith in the living God and his Son Jesus Christ is always the result of the new birth, and can never exist except in the regenerate. Whoever has faith is a saved man." - C.H. Spurgeon from His sermon Faith and Regeneration

Spurgeon used Hodge's Outlines of Theology in his Pastor's DCollege and said he agreed with him in everything except Baptism. So he taught pastore that regeneration precedes faith. You are kicking against the goads my brother. You want so badly for your position to be true but it has no biblical evidence. The last bastion of pride is to think that you are the author of your own faith and can thank God for everything else except your faith, the one thing you contributed.. The kind of grace the Bible speaks of is one in which we can boast in nothing.

And the Bible does teach irresistible grace (John 6:65, 37 Rom 9:16).


>>>>>Men have some free will as far as non-heavenly things are concerned (some areas), but ultimately tend towards evil. For instance, our sins are not by the divine decree of God (a blasphemous thought), but by our depraved will.

Dear sir, of course it is our depraved will in which we sin. Again, the natural man chooses evil of necessity and if something is done of necessity it is NOT FREE. The love of God is not the animating motive of an unregenerate persons' heart, even if he obeys outwardly, and whatever if not of faith is sin. The natural man is not free to chose Christ apart from converting grace because he will follow his natural inclinations which hate Christ.

As I said before, I have no time to continue this discussion. So please do not respond to what I have said with another email.
Solus Christus
____



I get the distinct feeling that he has to have the last word; having rejected my invitation to either take his time or ignore me altogether, he pressed on till he scored a point (the one about Spurgeon), then called it quits (firing a few parting shots while doing so). I did find it rather funny that he said "Show me you answer by citing Scripture." and then asked a few paragraphs later that I not reply. I was tempted to send him another email citing that he did ask me to show my evidence from scripture, but thought better of it. Instead I post the reply for you to see right here. So here goes:

There's not really much to argue with in the first three paragraphs, as I agree that the natural man is in slavery to sin. As for the fourth paragraph, I would say that men do follow their natures, but the grace of God can overpower the fallen human nature.

[I wrote] >>>>One does not 'have the Son' without faith in Him.

[to which he responded] No one ever argued this point. We are united to Christ by the Holy Spirit through faith. Regeneration is never spoken of in the text of Scripture as an imperative, however. We believe because we are born of God which John1:13, 1 John 5:1 and John 6:65 plainly show. There is no temporal sequence of events here. When God called the world into existence from nothing there was not time that passed. It existed because he spoke. Spiritual resurrection is the same.

It is actually at the heart of what we are arguing. If I understand what he is getting at, then he and I agree that faith and regeneration are simultaneous; the difference is that he is arguing that regeneration must logically precede faith. To quote him, "We believe because we are born of God..."). He cites as evidence,

"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

John 1:13


Which says absolutely nothing about us believing after we are born again; indeed, look at it and the verse just prior in context:

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."

John 1:12-13


Which indicates the exact opposite. The wording of the passage indicates that to those that received, He gave power to become children of God, not that He gave them power to become sons of God so that they would receive. Receiving Christ then must logically precede becoming a son of God. He goes on to cite,

"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him."

1 John 5:1


Talk about grasping for straws. Being born of God is described as an attribute of those who believe, there is nothing even in this passage of being born of God so that we may believe. He lastly cites as evidence,

"And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."

John 6:65



To which I say, "Amen and amen!", as well as "What does that have to do with regeneration?" It is obvious from the context of scripture that no one can come to Christ unless he is called of God, but nowhere in the scripture is this identified as regeneration. Let's look at my counter-syllogism to see if it indeed addresses what he is arguing.


"There is no evidence whatsoever in the Scripture which shows that an unregenerate person can love Christ. There is no evidence in the Scripture for the idea that your prevenient grace places us in place above our total depravity into some neutral zone where we can choose. This is your philosophical speculation. On the other hand I have plan Scripture which validates my position. What does your grace do for an unsaved person hearing the gospel. Show me you answer by citing Scripture."

To the contrary, if one must have faith in Christ to be regenerated (as I've clearly demonstrated above), then the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that God saves us through faith while we are unregenerate. With sheer weight of evidence on my side, I ask, 'Where does the scripture indicate that one who is unregenerate is unable to believe by the grace of God?' I actually argued the idea of prevenient grace, I think that from what the Bible says, I tend to believe in individual election rather than universal. Plain scripture that validates his position? All scripture has done is run his position aground repeatedly. Let's look at what God's grace does for a sinner prior to regeneration.

"And when he was disposed to pass into Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him: who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed through grace..."

Acts 18:27



Notice that they by grace believed, there is no mention of regeneration.

"And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard [us]: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul."

Acts 16:14




Following the syllogism I outlined above: God opened her heart, she believed; believing, she had the Son; having the Son, she now had life. A little thing we call amazing grace.


"You have misapprehended Spurgeon's quote..."

He is correct, and I concede the point. Spurgeon believed, as I do, that faith and regeneration are simultaneous, but contended that one must logically precede the other, and so taught that regeneration logically, not chronologically precedes faith, hence my misunderstanding of his quote. Spurgeons's opinion was simply meant as a slight additional weight though, not hard evidence, so his lack of support for my case is no great loss. Point to my opponent. For my rebuttal to his next point...nah, let's take a break and have a little fun.


"You are kicking against the goads my brother."

I have discovered what I shall coin as 'Thibodaux's First Law,' as a heated religious discussion between two rival camps continues (especially if a Calvinist is involved), the probability of one of the parties accusing the other of 'kicking against the goads' approaches 1. This can be correlated with Thibodaux's Second Law, which is that under the same conditions to which the first law applies, the probability is between one half and equal to that of the First Law, that one of the parties in said argument will accuse the other of having spiritual myopia (for reasons which science has yet to explain, people who debate theology just love using the word 'myopia'). Clearly these findings will have a major impact in the schools of both statistical analysis and theology, perhaps being the unifying principle that finally binds scientific and religious study, but I digress...


"The last bastion of pride is to think that you are the author of your own faith and can thank God for everything else except your faith, the one thing you contributed."

Contributed? Not at all: The scripture makes it clear that we must receive faith by hearing God's word (Romans 10:17) and hold to the faith (1 Timothy 1:19), but that faith itself is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8), which I did mention in my last letter. Quoting me: "Humility as well as faith are gifts from God; one must accept God's gift to receive it, but it would defy logic beyond the point of ridiculous to thank oneself for accepting a gift."


"The kind of grace the Bible speaks of is one in which we can boast in nothing."

It's never been clearly explained to me how one could boast in accepting a gift...


"And the Bible does teach irresistible grace (John 6:65, 37 Rom 9:16)."

Oh does it now? Let's examine this evidence carefully, please note the number of times the word 'irresistible' or similar terms occur:

"And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."

John 6:65


This is saying...that no man can come to Christ unless God the Father allows him to, it says nothing of irresistibility or lack thereof.

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

John 3:37


A slightly better attempt, but still no dice. They are operating under the assumption that the Father giving one to Christ is irresistible. But in the same chapter, Jesus says,

"It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me."

John 6:45


Clearly defining who the Father gives to Him. It is evident from scripture that men resist the word of God and the Holy Spirit's leading. "Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they [are] a rebellious house."

Ezekiel 12:2


"Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers [did], so [do] ye."

Acts 7:51


The claim then that God's giving men to Christ is proof for irresistible grace is fallacious. His last supporting scripture is,

"So then [it is] not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."

Romans 9:16


Which is absolute proof that we did not choose ourselves, or that we do not deserve mercy from God. How he connects this to irresistible grace is beyond me. Maybe he figures that because election is not according to our will, but God's, that God must irresistibly change our will to conform to His; but this is rather a non-sequitur with no textual support.


Dear sir, of course it is our depraved will in which we sin. Again, the natural man chooses evil of necessity and if something is done of necessity it is NOT FREE. The love of God is not the animating motive of an unregenerate persons' heart, even if he obeys outwardly, and whatever if not of faith is sin. The natural man is not free to chose Christ apart from converting grace because he will follow his natural inclinations which hate Christ.

I actually agree with that statement, which was a reply to a statement of mine which also agreed with his logic, leading me wonder why he felt it necessary to write it. No matter. I think the only major disagreement we'd have in that arena is that I believe it is clear from the Bible that God's grace is resistible. No man can come to Christ unless it be granted him of the Father, but that fact does not necessitate that the man respond to God's grace.

As far as my original question concerning Revelation 22:19, he did a halfway decent job of trying to reconcile it with his beliefs, but ultimately was unsuccessful, as his only pieces of evidence were: 1.) assuming that God with perfect foreknowledge would not do such a thing (why not?), and 2.) asserting that it could not mean what it said because it contradicted his Calvinistic paradigm/interpretation of scripture, which could not stand up to close scrutiny throughout our debate.

I would like to thank the man that exchanged these emails with me, for a good discussion, good attitude, and spirit of Christian unity and love despite our disagreement on a secondary issue. While I believe such issues are important to discuss, especially in the area of discerning what important points of the gospel are and are not, the unity that we share through Christ our Savior outshines any system of theology any day. May the day come quickly when we see Him not through a glass darkly as we do now, but face to face.


In Christ,
J.C. Thibodaux

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