ANNOUNCER: All this week we’ve been discussing a book called “Whosoever Will,” a critique of Calvinism.” Today, the question we will be looking at is: can the spiritually dead respond to Christ? This is the T in tulip. What is depravity and what might be the difference in definition from a Calvinist to a non-Calvinist? Thank you for joining us today, friend. This is Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is FaithAlone.org. Please come and visit us there to find out about our subscription-free magazine, our online seminary, our books, and articles, and our events. One upcoming in Kamiah, Idaho. You want to take a look at that, coming up in July. A beautiful place, Kamiah, Idaho, and a regional conference there, July 19th through the 23rd. All you need to know about us at faithalone.org. 

Now with today’s discussion here is Bob Wilkin, along with Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, everybody. We are, I think this is episode four or five of our little series we’re doing, talking about this book called Whosoever Will, but more or so talking about Calvinism and going through some of the core beliefs of it and some of the major issues that we have with that theology. So in this episode, we’re going to talk about the T in Tulip. 

BOB: The T in Tulip is total depravity. 

SAM: Total depravity, and we’re going to offer a better explanation than the Calvinists when it comes to what being spiritually dead means. 

BOB: Yeah, now we’ve been looking at a book called Whosoever Will. It’s a critique of five-point Calvinism. So the chapter on total depravity was by Paige Patterson, who used to be at Criswell Bible Institute and then used to be the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. And Paige Patterson was one of the key players in helping move the Southern Baptist seminaries from liberalism back to conservatism. So I think real highly of him, although I think Paige Patterson holds to a mild form of lordship salvation, but I like more or less what he says about total depravity.

A lot of people think total depravity means we’re sinners. It means a whole lot more than that. In fact, another name that Calvinists use for total depravity is total inability. Here’s how Patterson describes what Calvinists say. Dead people cannot do anything. When people are dead, they’re dead. So Patterson’s point is that the Calvinists say, if you’re spiritually dead, you can’t do anything spiritually. 

SAM: And the spiritually dead refers to the nonelect, right? 

BOB: Yeah, that’s right. In Calvinism, all points tie together the unconditional election ties in with total depravity and limited all the way down the line. So if you believe one of the points, they all five hang together, and they argue if you reject any of them, then you reject all five. 

So when they say that you can’t do anything, one of the illustrations that’s often used is think of someone who fell down a 40 foot well, broke his neck and died at the bottom of the well. And so rescuers come to rescue the person at the bottom of the well and they throw him a rope and they say, “Tie the rope around your waist and we’ll pull you out.” Well, because he’s a cadaver, he can’t tie the rope around his waist. He can’t even hear them. He can’t understand them. He can’t do anything. And that’s the Calvinist view of total depravity. 

If they were consistent, they would say you could tell him Jesus was born in Bethlehem and they wouldn’t understand what you were saying. They couldn’t believe it. They couldn’t understand it because they can’t get anything spiritually whatsoever. Now, that’s not exactly what Calvinists say. What they say is, well, you can intellectually believe many of the fundamentals of the faith. In fact, Calvinists would argue you could intellectually believe all the fundamentals of the faith. And they have a discussion in this book about something called temporary faith. Calvinists say there’s something called temporary faith where a person can even believe in Christ temporarily. 

SAM: Right. And you can think that you’re saved, but really you’re not because you weren’t one of the elect. 

BOB: And they also have temporary works. So you can have works that look like the works of a believer. That’s how they understand the second and third soils and the parable of the four soils. It says it sprang up. So they have to have some explanation of if the seed that germinates is the saving word of God, how is it these people aren’t saved? Well, they say because they only have temporary faith and temporary faith doesn’t save. That still doesn’t explain how the seed germinated. One Calvinist I read said, well, they have some kind of spiritual life, but it’s less than eternal life. It’s some kind of work of God in their life. Well, how can God do any work in their life if they can’t respond to Him in any way, right? 

So here’s what page Patterson says in order to prove that the Calvinist view of total depravity is wrong. On page 39 of this book, Whosoever Will, he says quote, though dead spiritually, they, Adam and Eve, could and did respond to God preparing for his visit, talking with Him and eventually accepting His remedy for their nakedness. Now, I would probably change that slightly and say His remedy for their deadness. And I would cite Genesis 3:15, the first gospel,  that the seed of the woman was going to crush the head of the seed of the serpent, but the seed of the serpent was going to strike the seed of the woman on the heel. Both of those occurred at the cross. Ultimately, he suggests Adam and Eve were born again when they met with God, I would say the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ, in the garden in Genesis three. And I would agree with him. Obviously they understood what God was saying to them. So this is a good example, one I’ve never used. 

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BOB: Now, one I like to use is Cornelius. Why would Cornelius be a good example of why total of gravity is not right? 

SAM: Because he was a Gentile, he was a God-fearer so he had been studying the Jewish texts and he was somewhat aware and he was seeking and God brought the message to him, but also spoke to Cornelius directly as well or through angels, spoke to Cornelius and Peter and arranged their meeting. 

BOB: So when the angel tells Cornelius to send to Simon, did Cornelius understand what he was supposed to do? 

SAM: He understood what he was supposed to do.

BOB: And he did it, right? So how can he understand the angel if he spiritually dead? If he is a cadaver at the bottom of the well, he can’t hear what an angel has to say. He can’t send for Simon Peter and when Simon Peter comes, he can’t believe, but he did believe and so did his household and they were all born again. And Peter talks about that in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:7-11, that they believed. 

See, what Calvinists say is that regeneration precedes faith. So what you have to do in order to save the dead man at the bottom of the well, you have to resurrect him, give him life back, and then he can be saved. And according to Calvinists, he doesn’t even believe, he doesn’t even tie the rope around his waist, God ties the rope around the waist. God does the believing for them by giving them the gift of faith. 

Cornelius was told in Acts 11:14, he was told by the angel that Simon Peter will tell you words by which you and your household must be saved. Well, he believes that. He believes that Simon Peter was going to tell him the saving message. And when he did, he did believe the saving message that by faith in Jesus, he was forgiven and saved forever. And so all of this contradicts this Calvinist idea that deadness means you have no response to God. 

And also think of Acts 17:27, this is where Paul is preaching in Athens at a place called the Areopagos. And he’s speaking to a group of philosophers. He talks to them about the resurrection of the dead and their kind of myth. But in verse 27, he says something about how unbelievers can seek God and find God. 

SAM: He says, “So that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might group for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” 

BOB: And he’s talking to unbelievers and he doesn’t think it’s stupid to talk to them, right? Paul even says that they can grow up after God and find him for he’s not far from us. And so this idea of spiritual deadness is totally wrong. 

SAM: Right. I mean, none of the accounts and Acts where Paul or Peter, any of them are preaching to large groups. You know, if they were being honest by the Calvinist view, they should have said, well, some of you, it doesn’t matter what you do. You’re already gone. But I’m talking to the people in the crowd that might be elect. You need to do these things that you can be or generated and then receive faith. It doesn’t, it just doesn’t follow any of the teaching in the book of Acts. 

BOB: No, that’s right, but it even be a step more. You’d say some of you, if you’re, are elect and those of you who are elect are going to be born again. Now, you can’t do anything to be born again. You can’t believe, but what can happen is God can regenerate you. And I know you don’t understand any of this, but God can do this and he can give you the gift of faith. 

Here’s what I would say, and I’m going to talk about Ephesians 2:1-10. And part of that is you were dead in your trespasses and sins. And one of the things I say there is to be spiritually dead is to be spiritually dead. It doesn’t mean you can’t respond to God. It doesn’t mean you can’t understand anything. It means you lack eternal life and what you need is eternal life. So what the dead person needs is life. And so God gives them everlasting life if they believe. Now, it is true, there’s a satanic blinding, second Corinthians 4:4, but God takes away that blinding if we are open, if we’re groping after Him, if we’re seeking Him, that happened with Cornelius. It happened with Lydia in Acts chapter 16. 

So I like what page Patterson does in this chapter and clearly spiritually dead people can believe. That’s why it’s a good thing to evangelize your children and your brothers and sisters and your parents and your aunts and uncles and people at work and people at school and people you come into contact with because they can really understand what you’re saying. Now, they may reject it, but they can understand it. And even if they reject it, they can chew on it and meditate on it and eventually be born again. 

Well, thanks so much, everybody. Let’s remember to keep grace in focus. Amen. 

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Now, we thank you, friend, for joining us every day this past week. It’s been good to have you along. We hope you have a great weekend. Spend some time with other believers in a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church. And we’ll see you back here on Monday for more Grace in Focus.