The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - What Are Some Views Of Salvation Besides Calvinism and Arminianism？

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00:00:21.240 Super chat from Jamie J. Jamie J.

00:00:24.300 Is Calvinism and Arminianism the only two views

00:00:27.320 and will you explain the differences of each?

00:00:30.100 Okay, no.

00:00:31.600 All right, so in terms of views, views of what?

00:00:33.900 All right, so the headline for this,

00:00:35.080 you got theology, all right?

00:00:36.840 And then subcategories, soteriology.

00:00:39.460 Soteriology is a doctrine of salvation.

00:00:41.540 How does God say, what is salvation?

00:00:43.700 How does God apply salvation?

00:00:45.540 How does God not just apply salvation

00:00:47.120 to the individual person that he's saving,

00:00:48.940 but how did God accomplish salvation

00:00:51.180 through the work of his son, Jesus,

00:00:53.400 the person work of Christ?

00:00:55.240 So soteriology covers all of that.

00:00:57.780 What is salvation?

00:00:59.560 How does God accomplish salvation?

00:01:01.140 How does God apply salvation?

00:01:02.680 The doctrine of salvation is soteriology.

00:01:05.400 Within soteriology, there are multiple views.

00:01:07.960 Arminianism is one.

00:01:09.200 Calvinism is one.

00:01:10.960 There is also the provisionism view.

00:01:15.460 Leighton Flowers talks about that all the time.

00:01:18.820 Leighton Flowers is very grateful for guys like me

00:01:22.220 and guys like James White.

00:01:23.200 If it wasn't, he'd have nothing to talk about if it wasn't for Calvinist.

00:01:26.520 So he's a provisionist.

00:01:28.540 I don't have time to go into that.

00:01:29.820 You can check out my debate with Leighton.

00:01:31.400 It was actually my first time ever formally debating someone.

00:01:34.500 Leighton, I would argue that in that debate, I would say that Leighton did better than

00:01:38.620 me, just for the record.

00:01:39.840 I think he did better than me.

00:01:41.200 So I'm not just, oh, I did great, and Leighton's twisting my words, or Leighton this.

00:01:45.180 I don't think that.

00:01:46.380 I like Leighton.

00:01:47.220 I think he's a good guy.

00:01:48.120 I think he's dead wrong on these things.

00:01:50.340 And I do think that I would like to see him address some other things besides just so

00:01:54.280 to teoriology, but you're allowed to just have a YouTube channel that talks about one

00:01:59.360 thing.

00:01:59.780 Leighton's allowed to do that.

00:02:00.700 So anyways, all that being said, he would be a provisionist.

00:02:04.300 If you want to know about provision, you can check out our debate.

00:02:08.120 And if you want to, the Colossians 2 thing is where in our cross-examination where I

00:02:12.340 feel like he stumped me.

00:02:14.420 And I have an answer for that now.

00:02:16.100 I didn't at the time.

00:02:17.120 I was caught off guard and just wasn't prepared for that portion of debate, cross-examination.

00:02:24.040 I didn't have a lot of experience in that, hadn't done it before.

00:02:26.880 So I think he bested me on that point, Colossians chapter 2.

00:02:30.260 Other than that, though, I think you'll hear me in my opening statement and closing statement,

00:02:34.700 and then Leighton also in his opening and closing statement.

00:02:37.420 You'll hear, I think, generally a good definition of Calvinism and provisionism.

00:02:42.620 And provisionism, my whole point is to say that differs from Arminianism.

00:02:46.100 So now we have three views. There's also Molinism, which deals with salvation, but also really deals

00:02:51.880 with middle knowledge and what does it mean for God to be sovereign and what's the nature of God's

00:02:57.540 sovereignty and these kinds of things. But you could talk about that. James White has a good

00:03:01.200 debate on Molinism with William Lane Craig. And I think James White mops the floor with William

00:03:08.280 Lane Craig, but you can check that out. But Arminianism and Calvinism seem to be the primary

00:03:14.480 views of soteriology. Just for the record, in a nutshell, you can check out the debate with

00:03:20.780 Leighton. But in a nutshell, the difference between provisionism and Arminianism is Arminianism has

00:03:27.560 this clause that Jacobus Arminius, he kind of entered into the fray because he had to resolve

00:03:34.180 some tension that he was creating by denying certain Calvinistic doctrines. And so what he

00:03:40.180 did to resolve it is he created this, this extra category of, of what he called provenient grace.

00:03:46.980 Okay. And so provenient grace is the way that, that, uh, Jacobus Arminius and his followers,

00:03:52.320 um, more particularly, we're able to affirm what the Bible teaches about total depravity,

00:03:57.400 uh, that total depravity is total inability. And this is where provisionism would disagree.

00:04:02.120 Layton would disagree with that. Um, but the Arminian would say, no, uh, Joel and the Calvinists,

00:04:07.280 they're right about total depravity. Total depravity, it means you cannot come to Christ.

00:04:12.480 You're totally unable to come to Christ. However, the Arminian would say, but however,

00:04:19.140 what you're not considering is this window of grace, this momentary, temporary, partial,

00:04:25.020 prevenient grace. And what that prevenient grace does is that there are times under the unction

00:04:30.160 of the Holy Spirit where he basically takes someone who is totally depraved and total

00:04:35.680 depravity is total inability. This person can't come to Christ, but in prevenient grace for a

00:04:40.300 moment, the Holy Spirit temporarily, he temporarily suspends or lifts. It's temporary and it's

00:04:47.240 partial. Partially and temporarily suspends or lifts the person's total depravity, total inability,

00:04:54.640 and brings them, as it were, to kind of a state of spiritual neutrality to where the person then

00:05:00.540 is able to hear the preaching of the gospel from a neutral standpoint and able to make an objective

00:05:05.600 and unbiased choice to either put faith in Christ, and then the faith would result in

00:05:12.880 regeneration, being born again. Being born again would be the reward, if you will, for faith,

00:05:17.120 or the person can choose to double down in their sin and harden their heart, reject the gospel,

00:05:21.700 and then the prevenient grace, window of grace would pass, and they would harden back into their

00:05:28.740 sin. So that's Arminianism. And so what I'm saying is Arminianism agrees with Calvinism

00:05:33.820 in terms of total depravity, meaning total inability. People can't come to God. But the

00:05:38.840 Arminian puts in this prevenient grace clause, which is not biblical, but they do. They put that

00:05:45.300 in. And that's how they get around the total depravity piece. And then, of course, the Arminian

00:05:50.340 has to, there's other, you know, it creates all these other holes in their theology. Because my

00:05:54.360 question to Arminian would be, does God give prevenient grace to everyone, right? Because

00:05:59.160 you're also denying unconditional election. And you say that the opportunity is there for everyone.

00:06:06.120 So God must be, at some point in someone's life, must be giving this prevenient grace to everyone.

00:06:10.040 My next question is, not just does he give, God give prevenient grace to everyone so they have

00:06:14.180 an opportunity to come to faith, but does God give the same measure, the same degree of prevenient

00:06:18.680 grace? Because I could say, as a Calvinist, I'm looking at the apostle Paul on the road to

00:06:23.000 Damascus, his conversion. And I would say, well, gee, I know a lot of people, a lot of people,

00:06:29.160 who if they were blinded from a light from heaven and knocked off of a horse and heard an audible

00:06:34.940 voice from the clouds saying, so-and-so, so-and-so, why do you persecute me? And they responded

00:06:41.440 saying, who are you? And then the voice again thundered and said, I am Jesus whom you are

00:06:47.540 persecuting. I feel like I know a lot of people who are not Christians, but if they had that

00:06:52.220 provenient grace, that measure, that degree, they would come to Christ. And Jesus even says this,

00:06:59.120 Jesus says, he pronounces woes, judgment on certain cities in Israel, and he compares them

00:07:05.440 to Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says, it'll be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on judgment, 0.99

00:07:10.720 with judgment, than it will be for these Israelite cities, because he says this, 0.67

00:07:14.120 for if the signs, if the measure of grace, the measure of revelation, if the signs and wonders,

00:07:21.100 the miracles that I performed in you, you Jewish cities, had been performed in them,

00:07:26.380 Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago. So what is Jesus saying? He's saying 0.93

00:07:32.700 if they had been given more grace, they would have been saved. They would have repented.

00:07:39.420 So why did they not repent? Well, because of their sin on the one hand, but on the other hand,

00:07:44.660 because God knew that if he gave them more grace, they would repent and God chose not to.

00:07:49.060 i mean isaiah prophesies this and jesus quotes isaiah remember when the disciples asked isaiah

00:07:54.660 they say uh or they asked jesus why do you speak in parables and we always pastors always say well

00:07:59.520 jesus used stories because it's a good analogy and illustration for the points that's not what

00:08:04.140 jesus says he doesn't say i speak in parables to uh to give a visual you know i do it the same for

00:08:10.120 the same reason that pastors show movie clips in their sermons and and powerpoint that's not what

00:08:14.500 Jesus says. He doesn't say parables help to illustrate my point. No, he says, I use parables

00:08:19.820 to fulfill the prophet Isaiah who said, ever seeing but never perceiving, ever hearing but

00:08:25.700 never listening, right? That their eyes would be blinded, their ears would be deafened. Isaiah

00:08:31.000 prophesied of Christ saying that he's going to speak in such a way that people, it will be

00:08:35.800 unclear. So the parables are not meant to be helpful illustrations to make the point. They're

00:08:41.720 actually meant to be mysterious riddles intentionally for the point that, so that

00:08:47.100 many will miss Jesus' point. And then Jesus, but to you, these things have been revealed. And then

00:08:53.100 he explains the parables to his disciples, right? And so my point is, even in that, you have this

00:08:59.300 idea of there could be, there's some measure of revelation, there's some measure of grace,

00:09:04.420 and that's what Romans 1 said. Everybody's received some measure of grace by simply living

00:09:08.500 in God's world, right? God has revealed his existence, certain attributes of God, his eternal

00:09:15.640 power, his divine nature by creation itself testifies to the existence of God by what he has

00:09:21.760 made so that all men are without an excuse. So, all men have received some grace and we would

00:09:27.020 argue biblically that they've received enough grace through natural revelation to be not saved,

00:09:34.740 But all men have received enough grace, enough revelation from God through creation itself

00:09:40.100 to be justly condemned, to be without an excuse, for God to be just and justified when he judges

00:09:46.700 sinful men. But not all people receive enough special grace to be saved. And then what is that

00:09:55.140 if not some kind of quasi-election? Think about that. So, just think about it in terms of God's

00:10:02.320 omniscience. All right. The omniscience of God, meaning he knows all things. He knows the end

00:10:06.080 from the beginning. All right. So if God knows all things, he's omniscient. And let's add to that,

00:10:10.860 if God is omnipotent, so not just he knows all things, but he can do all things. He's all

00:10:14.780 powerful, all knowing and all powerful. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, he knows all things

00:10:20.200 and can do all things. Then that means for each individual person who's ever lived, God knows

00:10:25.020 exactly what it would take to persuade them to salvation, for them to repent of their sins and

00:10:30.940 put faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, just like the apostle Paul on the way to Damascus, right? So God

00:10:36.700 knows all things. He knows exactly what it would take for each individual to come to Christ. And

00:10:40.680 God can do all things. He's omnipotent, not just omniscient, but omnipotent. He can do all things,

00:10:44.860 meaning God is fully capable of doing exactly what he knows is needed to bring them to Christ.

00:10:52.760 But he doesn't. He doesn't. Why? I don't know. I mean, the closest I can get to answering that

00:10:59.440 question is romans 9 right that that why does god save people by by his grace well ephesians 1 to

00:11:06.240 the praise of his glorious grace god predestined some and save some elect some to the praise of

00:11:10.880 his glorious grace and i feel like on the flip side what we would have to say kind of cross

00:11:15.440 referencing exegeting ephesians 1 in light of romans 9 is that god chooses not to save some

00:11:21.740 to the praise of his glorious holiness god saves to the praise of his glorious grace and he doesn't

00:11:28.560 save to the praise of his glorious judgment, to the praise of his glorious justice. I don't know,

00:11:35.940 he's God. I mean, Romans 9, I think covers it well. The apostle Paul says, well, that doesn't

00:11:41.120 seem fair. And Paul says, but who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Does the clay have the right

00:11:47.620 to say to the potter, why did you make me like this? Does not the potter reserve the right to

00:11:51.360 make out of the same lump of clay, some for honorable use and some for common use, dishonorable

00:11:57.460 is what the text actually says. That's what the word means. Dishonorable use. He's gone.

00:12:03.800 I don't know. He's gone. All I know is that he's good. He is just. What he does is right.

00:12:11.240 And he's also good. And I don't always understand it, but that is the reformed view. And my point

00:12:16.460 is in saying all that, my point is to say for the Arminian, well, some people get more

00:12:20.440 prevenient grace and some people get less prevenient grace. And there are verses that

00:12:23.960 cover this. And for the provisionists like Leighton, he doesn't do the provenient grace thing.

00:12:29.380 What he does is he just denies the doctrine of total depravity. And so he'd say, well,

00:12:33.040 I affirm total depravity, but I don't define it as total inability. So even Jacobus Arminius

00:12:39.920 would say to Leighton, that's no, that's no. Because Jacobus Arminius and Arminians,

00:12:46.080 classic Arminians affirm, they affirm total depravity as total inability. And Leighton 0.99

00:12:52.320 would basically say, well, people are sinners and everybody needs salvation, but people are not so

00:12:56.380 far gone in their sin, in their sin nature that they cannot hear the gospel and come to faith.

00:13:02.260 So people don't need to be brought to a state of neutrality from a state of hostility to God

00:13:07.420 with this prevenient grace clause. No, people can kind of, you know, they're already kind of there

00:13:13.960 or they can get there or the gospel will bring them there, but not the spirit. And there's a

00:13:20.920 distinction there because then it becomes kind of like this almost catholic eastern orthodox

00:13:25.320 sacramental view of the gospel right the gospel is the power of god for salvation first for the

00:13:30.020 jew and then for the greek but the gospel is is not a sacrament the gospel uh does not infuse

00:13:36.540 grace it's faith in the gospel by grace that imputes righteousness and so so there's there's

00:13:43.080 problems with that but the point is provisionism arminianism calvinism and i went through all those

00:13:48.500 links to let you know why that's where I am. And that's why I hold to that. Um, and then you would

00:13:53.340 have things like Pelagianism, right? Which would be a heresy. Um, there are partial semi Pelagianists,

00:14:00.720 uh, Pelagianists. And, and with that, it's like basically, all right. So there's monergism. That's

00:14:05.280 the idea that like God reaches down and saves man. It's not teamwork makes the dream work. It's just,

00:14:09.620 it's a work of God, his unconditional election, his power to glory, to the glory of God alone.

00:14:14.860 Okay. That's monergism. All right. Then there's synergism and that would be semi-Pelagianism.

00:14:20.380 That's where man reaches up and God reaches down. Teamwork makes the dream work. God's reaching

00:14:24.740 down. He's reaching down to everyone. The determinative factor and who gets saved and

00:14:28.220 who doesn't is up to man. Is he going to reach up to God or is he going to reject God's help,

00:14:33.920 God's salvation? Okay. That's synergism. That would fall underneath the bounds of orthodoxy.

00:14:39.200 I think it's wrong, but it's not a heresy, okay?

00:14:42.040 And that would be under this synergistic view of salvation, a semi-Pelagianism would be

00:14:49.300 your provisionism, would be your Arminianism.

00:14:52.880 But then there's just straight up Pelagianism, no semi, but just, and that's where man just 0.65

00:14:58.400 reaches up to God, and man is pretty much doing it all, and that would be a heresy.

00:15:04.520 So monergism, that's like Calvinism. Semi-Pelagianism, synergism, that's Arminianism,

00:15:11.400 provisionism. I think it's wrong, but it's not a heresy. And then there's straight up Pelagianism

00:15:17.200 where man does all the work. And therefore, logically, we can only assume that man deserves 0.97

00:15:22.660 all the glory. So anyways, I hope that helps. So Arminianism and Calvinism, those are the two

00:15:28.040 primary soteriological views, but there are others. Provisionism would be one of them.

00:15:34.520 Pelagianism, although heresy would be one of them. You can maybe argue Molinism, although 0.84

00:15:40.320 that's not primarily talking about salvation, but it does address that. So that's at least

00:15:45.420 five views right there. Thanks so much for listening. But real quick, before you go,

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The NXR Podcast - August 20, 2022

QUESTIONS - What Are Some Views Of Salvation Besides Calvinism and Arminianism？

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