Ex-Calvinist Bible Scholar Reviews James White Vs. Leighton Flowers Debate: John 6:44

Dr. Joel Korytko was a Calvinist for over 10 years, graduated with a PhD from Oxford, and now is an Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Northwest Seminary

[garfieldrobinson]

Dr. Flowers said that if one comes in with wrong assumptions one will leave with bad interpretations

[steventhompson]

In this case, "John 6:44-45" is not ambiguous. Lord Jesus is showing evidence, in verse 45, from what *"is written in the prophets"* to explain what he previously stated about the *drawing of the Father.* The Father draws all those who have *listened to (active verb)* and *learned (active verb)* from Him to come to the Son. Those who *refuse to listen* to and *learn* from the Father are *not drawn* to the Son.

The *drawing* of God was for all of them by *His teaching, * {{{according to the prophets, }}} but *many refused* to be drawn by the Father, *resisting* His Spirit *(Acts 7:51)* and *refusing* His teaching *(Romans 10:21).*

*Isaiah 30:9* states: For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who *"refuse to listen"* to the *"instruction of the Lord."*

*Jeremiah 32:33* They have turned their back to Me and not their face; though *"I taught them, "* teaching again and again, they would *not "listen"* and *"receive instruction."*

[primeobjective]

Dr. White was trying to argue, indirectly that the "Hearing & Learning" were EFFECTUAL works of God to His Elect.

He was bringing this belief into the text though, and assuming it was the default position.

[Soteriology]

Oh, I have so many questions. 😊

I think there are some fair criticisms of my comments in your discussion and maybe a couple critiques that were based on a misunderstanding of what I was attempting to communicate, but overall very informative.

I’d be interested in interviewing Dr. Korykto sometime if he is available.

[T_Mike]

Dr Korytko, please consider creating content for YT. Found your analysis a breath of fresh air. Thank you both

[Jesusisking]

How in the world can anyone truly born again fall for this strange Calvinist Doctrine? Living sold out for Christ over the past 38 years, after discovering that there is a group of people out there within the umbrella of Christianity who believe such a foreign gospel blew my mind.

- Jesus does not love all, did not die for all, does not want all to be saved?
- God decrees that a child was abused?
- From out of the womb the majority of people are born with ZERO choice, but were created only to glorify God in hell for eternity?
- Their leader John Calvin's favorite wood to use to burn those who disagreed with him was green wood? (It burnt slower).
- To believe on your own is a "works-based salvation"? What????
- Their god hates most people but calls us to love our enemies?
- Anytime you see the word "ALL" and "WORLD" in the bible it always means "elect"?
- We are called "universalists" because we believe Jesus died and wants all to come to Calvary?
- And on and on and on...

I've come to the conclusion that there is zero good news in the Calvinist toxic doctrine. I love Calvinists, just cannot agree with their view of their toxic doctrine.

Don't fall for Calvinism. Escape while you can! Jesus CLEARLY SAID we have a will to choose. John 7:17... "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority."

[tymmiara]

00:59:13 The point Dr Korytko is making about John's style is very important. Jesus' speeches in John (and probably also in reality how they were spoken in a Jewish context), were NOT LINEAR. He described John's style as "circular", I've heard it described as "spiralling towards a point", but the idea is that you must never tear out a single verse from the whole passage.
This is why I think the whole premise of the debate, which focuses on only two verses, is absurd.
You CANNOT cherry-pick your verses and ignore, for example verse 6:40
" For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."
This verse is very much about conditional election (conditional on belief). Calvinists must not ignore verse 40 and focus only on verse 39 or verse 44 or even the verses about eating flesh.

[JosiahTheSiah]

22:14 I had a Calvinist tell me on his channel that the "listening and learning" were meant to be passive, and that the only reason to not read them as passive was if I already had a presupposition that they weren't passive.

To which I said... 🤨

[elrogers]

Great review, very charitable to both and not getting pulled into the quarreling. I especially enjoyed the semantic discussion. Thank you, guys.

[michaelfaber]

James White also fails miserably on articular participles, failing to understand that the default translation is 'who' or 'who is', as he translates John 3:16 as "all the believing ones". He did the same with "hearing" and "learning" making them "all the hearing ones" rather than "all who believe" and "all the learning ones" rather than "all who learned", and thus is trying to make the participle describe something about all of the "all", rather than the obvious reading that "all who hear" and "all who learn" are a subset of "all" from "all taught of God."

[michaelfaber]

Leighton pointed out that the condition for election is found in verse 64, as those who did not believe were not granted the ability. That was the end of the debate.

[laurakosch]

I thought LF’s explanation was quite thorough - explaining that those who had obeyed and followed the Father were being given to the Son.

Also - note the difference between “can come” and will (the former is biblical the latter not).

[fredmiller]

It's funny and ironic that God would SOVEREIGNLY pick a guy named FLOWERS to challenge the high priests of TULIP! 😆😆

[luisrafaelayala]

Not that they will come but that they can come.

[JosiahTheSiah]

13:03 Precisely. Thank you. It's very simple linguistics. The Greek doesn't convey some hidden, magical meaning for exegesis.

[Jesusisking]

The old "who are you to question God?' line. To which I respond: I'm not questioning God - I'm questioning you and your understanding of what God said.

[sharonlouise]

This was fantastic! I don't know why Calvinists seem to make verse 44 in John 6 the "center" of what Jesus is communicating. It appears to me that the context is communicating "believe" and not "drawing." Thank you for this discussion!

[dhblue]

Very interesting. Thank you. For so long JW threw out stuff about the Greek without defending. Great job.

[controlclerk]

It's weird to me people are seemingly focused on whether learning is active or passive in light of verse 37.

[scottthong]

Could it be that a Greek translation committee member, White does know how Greek conveys meaning - but is relying on the ignorance of the audience (and Flowers) about Greek in order to win points?