The Calvinist Arguments for the Tulip - Interview with Sam Mina

Watch Sam Mina (Calvinist) challenge Josh Barnes (non-Calvinist) on free will, determinism, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. Comment with your best arguments for or against Calvinism.

[GraceThroughfaithChild]

Really enjoying this!!! Thank you both!

[bradhouston]

It’s kinda crazy, but 20 years after having a violent objection with Calvinism and even humans as being inherently evil...I have come full circle and I think I’m becoming a Calvinist, but with peace this time

[sebastianandjennifer]

Hi Josh. Great discussion. Appreciate your attitude and your willingness to discuss your differences with Sam. You seem to parse faith into a kind that is effective as a condition God uses to then grant salvation. But I have a few objections:
-Saving faith only comes in 1 variety and it is a gift from God (Phil 1:29, Eph 2:8-9).
-If the right kind of faith is necessary to please God into granting salvation, then you have a contradiction in Romans 8:8
-John 6:65 gives a universal negative condition without which it is impossible to come to Jesus: the Father must grant saving faith.
-If the flesh had to manifest the right kind of faith, it would therefore profit everything, not nothing as we are told in John 6:63.
-How could Jacob manifest the right kind of faith or even any faith before he was born in Rom 9:13?
So I agree with you that salvation is conditional, but the condition can only be granted monergisticly through the sovereign will of God.
By the way, Rom 3:11 teaches that no one seeks after God, but John 6:44 tells us why, that is that people can seek after God only after the Father draws them. This squares perfectly with Acts 17:27. Paul is acknowledging that people should seek God but he does not get into the mechanics of how that happens. It is explained further elsewhere.
Grace and peace to you.

[thorshammer]

What do you think of doing a video about the documentary called Patterns of Evidence the Exodus that shows evidence that something similar to the events of Exodus had happened but not in Rameses's era of the Late Kingdom but during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt back in the era when Egypt did use straw bricks described in the Bible?

[Rocku]

If I am told the score of a hockey game before I watch it and watch it anyway does that mean that the players did not have free will because I knew the end score anyway?

Just trying to wrap my head around everything

[videobirdshow]

Can you make a video talking about “typical” Christians? Here’s who I’m talking about

1 - they’re old earth creationists

2 - they party on Friday night, but they go to church on Sunday morning.

3 - they eat ham, despite Leviticus chapter 11 verse 7 forbidding eating ham

4 - they either ignore the book of Job because of Behemoth being a Dinosaur.

5 - they don’t lie to people unless it’s about Santa Claus or Easter Bunny being real

6 - they don’t allow Harry Potter in their house because of witchcraft, but they watch Disney.

[jswatch]

Can you do a movie where revenge of the sith is biblical?

[jyerkes]

Barnes... What label would you call your view of soteriology? It seems like almost Calvinism, but not Arminian or Molonism. I would say I agree with you on most aspects.

[Rocku]

What is your stance? you lean Calvinist but what would that be called exactly?

[HardRealist]

Some have argued from Romans 8:29 that predestination is based on God’s foreknowledge in the sense that God looked down the corridors of time and saw who would freely choose to believe, and then predestinated them. This position assumes that foreknowledge here only means “knows in advance.” In the Bible, however, knowledge is often used in a sense of personal intimacy, as when Adam “knew” Eve and she conceived a son (Genesis 4:1). God’s foreknowledge is linked to His foreloving. We see in Romans 8:30 that everyone who was “foreknown” was also “predestined, called, justified, and glorified.”
Does God glorify everyone? Does God justify everyone? No. Clearly then, in terms of what this passage is dealing with, God does not call everyone, does not predestine everyone, and does not foreknow everyone. In Romans 8:29-30, “foreknowledge” must have the sense of intimacy and personal calling, and can refer only to God’s elect. God’s predestination does not exist in a vacuum, and it is not simply for the purpose of saving us from sin. Verse 29 shows us the goal or purpose of salvation: that we might be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Ultimately, the reason God has saved you and me is for the honor and glory of His Son, “That He might be the firstborn.” The goal in creation is that God would give as a gift to His Son many who are reborn into Christ’s likeness.

R. C. Sproul, Tabletalk, 1989

[thorshammer]

What's your thoughts on the idea about the Anti Christ not being a human being but a nephilim since in the book of Jubilees Noah does called the nephilim he was referring too before the Flood as the Sons of Perdition just like the Beast is called and they were describe as pure evil as shown in Enoch 1 where they did unspeakable things to God's creations and corrupted all forms of life (Not the occult Enoch books) and the Anti Christ is going to be more evil than them and command great authority.

[lawrencestanley]

At 23:10,
“How can a lost person who is spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), by his own innate ability (which he does not have, cf. John 6:63), correctly understand and interpret spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14)? How can a lost person savingly believe in Christ when saving faith is a free gift of God (James 1:18, Ephesians 2:8) and when, by nature, man is at enmity with God (Romans 5:10) and will not (John 1:13) and cannot (John 6:44) come to God because he is enslaved to sin (John 3:19, 8:34), loving only to practice evil deeds continually (Genesis 6:5, 8:21, John 3:19)? The Biblical answer to both of these questions is that man can neither actually nor logically cause nor contribute any efficacy to his salvation because he is spiritually unable to do so, that is, he is totally depraved.”
“Definite Atonement, ” Gary D. Long, pgs 49-50

[lawrencestanley]

At 7:11 - 7:18, does God "causally determine sin?" That depends on what you mean. Has God determined sin to exist and that men act sinfully? Yes. Does God command men to act sinfully? No.

Look at the life of Joseph – God ordained that Joseph go into slavery (Genesis 45:8) so that He might, through Joseph, preserve His people that they might become a nation from whom the Messiah would come. God intended the action (Joseph going to Egypt) for the glory of God, while Joseph’s brothers on the other hand, sold him into slavery out of jealousy (a sinful act). Here we see in this one act ordained by God, two intentions: God ordains an action and intends it for good, while men perform the action and intend it for evil (Genesis 50:20). And, as we see in Isaiah 10:16, God will judge those who act with wicked intentions even though their actions carry out what He has ordained.

So where do men’s wicked intentions come from?
Proverbs 16:9 - The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.
Mark 7:21 – For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts…

While God indeed ordains the sinful condition of man’s heart (having ordained the fall, cf. Ephesians 1:11, Romans 8:20, Isaiah 63:17, 64:7), He does not seed him with “the evil thoughts.” Evil thoughts are not a created “thing” to be seeded, rather, they are a product of the mind of fallen man; it is a disposition; a bent; a deed of the flesh (Galatians 5:19); it is an ever present reminder of man’s fallen condition (Ephesians 2:1). The intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21) because sin dwells within him (Romans 7:8ff).

God is sovereign over all and ordains whatsoever comes to pass (Ephesians 1:11, Romans 11:36), and whatever He ordains, because God’s will is perfectly righteous and holy, His intention is always for the glory of God, and His will always serves that purpose. Man’s will however is fallen because of Adam’s sin (Romans 5), and unless his will is captivated by the righteousness of God working within his will to do and to work for the glory of God (Philippians 2:12-13), he will always work out what God ordains for his own sinful purposes (Genesis 50:20), according to his own wicked intentions (Proverbs 16:9, Mark 7:21).

In this way, God ordains (plans/arranges) whatsoever comes to pass, but He is not the author of sin – the existence of sin is in His eternal plan, therefore He has indeed ordained its existence, but he never decrees (commands) individuals to act sinfully; that they do out of their own intentions that have become fallen in Adam (Romans 5). God ordained the action and meant it for good, but men performed the action and meant it for evil. Because men perform the action intending it to fulfill their own sinful desires, although the action itself was ordained by God for His glory, men remain culpable for actions that they perform according to their own wicked intentions. (cf. Isaiah 10:5-11)

Remember James 1:13-14 – “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.”

God does not make men evil in order that they might carry out the decrees of God for wicked purposes. All men who are of natural generation from Adam have inherited a fallen nature (Romans 5) and are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3), and they will naturally act out God's decrees for their own wicked intentions, so, of course God does not tempt men to act wickedly, wickedness is in their nature thanks to Adam’s fall, and every man will be held accountable for acting upon the wicked intentions of his heart.

[HardRealist]

If God/Jesus has NOT predetermined who is to be saved than man has to commit to his own works and actions to be saved. Thus impressing upon God how qualified he might be. That is a gospel of works not grace. Grace like love is a gift. And if Christ committed to shedding his blood and dying for our sins and shouting out "Tetelestia", it is solely his sacrifice not ours. We can only bring sin to the cross not our works.

[sebastianandjennifer]

2 Peter 2:1 "denying the Master who bought them." Remember that these are false teachers. 2 Pet 2:20 explains further that the false teachers have escaped the defilements of the world through knowledge (intellectual only) of Jesus, but obviously not through saving faith since it goes on to say that they are again entangled in the same defilements and are overcome by them. So false teachers are falsely claiming in v1 that the Master has bought them. Also, if v1 means that Jesus bought/redeemed all people from all time, then those in Hell are paying twice for the same crimes, hence you have to either affirm universal salvation or else impose the injustice of double jeopardy on the always just God of the Bible.

[kcqbp]

Matthew 16:13-17 New King James Version

“Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ”

13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

[sebfetea]

Is Sam Mina fresh out of prison?





BTW it is a lighthearted JOKE, the hoodie looks decent tbf