How Much Free Will Do We Have?

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Welcome back to Think Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I am Joe Wilkie, joined as always by Will Harab and my brother, Jack Wilkey. And we have a fascinating episode for you this week. Last week we had covered Calvinism and so we want to jump into not the same thing, but adjacent to it, a question that inevitably rises. Before we get to that, fellas, we didn't even ask, are there any things that we're pushing? Any things that we want to let everybody know ahead of time? It's the start of the year. Obviously we had the big push at the end of the year in December. But look, we're still open for business. It's not just an end of year sales thing. So make sure if you do have any needs kind of coming. And I do have one, I guess we're going to push our focus plus again, we have our focus plus subscribers, our deep thinkers, and we love that. We love getting to interact with them and as they comment on our videos and such. And so every week we have that. We talk about that a lot. We also have the 365, which is the daily disciplines, what you are supposed to read, pray, meditate on and discuss each day. And Jack is helping me out with that. I think it's going very well. I was reading Jack's and it's encouraging to me, obviously, when I'm putting it together, you're trying to do it on your own. But getting to read Jackson from his perspective is really. Yeah. And I find it to be very good discussion questions. And I don't know if you guys are familiar, there's like table topics is what it's called. It's discussion cards that we would have and my wife and I would use those and I kind of use these as such. Like, that's an interesting question. Throw it out to my wife. What do you think about XYZ? So I think you could use as that just a conversation starter with your wife as you guys are getting ready for bed. It's just very easy, I would say. And obviously we want it around the dinner table if you got some older kids just to discuss that. But we're excited about that. That's our newest offering. We got a lot of things coming this year that are going to be fantastic on focus plus. So if you are not subscribed, I would consider subscribing and make that maybe part of your new year. I know we're a few days into it at this point, a couple of weeks in, but make that part of your New year's resolution is really to grow in your Bible study, grow in your prayer. And I think that's a really good place to start in bite sized chunks. But, fellas, anything else you'd push before we jump into the episode? All right, so as I said, fascinating episode. We are getting into the discussion of free will. Do we have free will as human beings? And again, on the heels of Calvinism, of course, Calvinism, they would say, you really don't have any free will. And there's the hyper Calvinist where God literally controls everything. And then there's shades of Calvinism where some are saying, no, not everything, but some. And then you have people that say, well, God, basically we're going to get into this, but God doesn't even know the future. So we all have absolute free will, libertarian free will, and we get to decide most things, and God really doesn't decide that much. So there's kind of a spectrum there that we want to get into on this week's episode. [00:02:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was going to say, is there's a lot of degrees to this question and a lot of people initially, maybe when they hear this question, do we have free will? Well, duh. Right. [00:03:02] Speaker A: Of course. [00:03:03] Speaker B: Of course humans have free will. But you look a little deeper, you look at some of the passages that we're going to go through here that John ten, first kings, 22, of course, in Exodus, Romans nine, quite a few more questions pop up as to, okay, was God pulling the strings, thereby removing humans free will? Do we have absolute free will? And so I do think for those of you who might be wondering, why is this even a think deeper episode? Why is this worth talking about? There's a little bit more depth to this subject than I think some people, and myself included a couple of years ago, like, oh, do humans have free will? Yeah, of course. Okay, move on. Next question. It's not as simple of an answer as that is. And the reason why, again, as Joe said, we're coming on the heels of the Calvinism episode is because there are a lot of things that we're going to discuss in this episode that do pertain directly to the kind of calvinistic arguments and the tenets of Calvinism, you might know, talking about unconditional election. And that would seem to indicate that we don't really, God is pulling the strengths that God does hand select this person to heaven, this person maybe not to heaven, and so thereby removing free will. And so it is a question that we need to answer. And again, there are a lot of scriptures that we're going to cover, I shouldn't say a lot. There's a handful of scriptures that we're going to cover that pose interesting questions, interesting challenges to this idea of complete and total free will. So that's what I'll say as we kind of introduce this. Jack, anything that you want to talk about before we get into, I guess, the verses themselves? [00:04:29] Speaker C: No, let's roll with it. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:04:33] Speaker B: All right, so we're going to start with kind of the, again, hyper calvinistic view and that is essentially no free will. Again, that God pulls all the strings, that we don't really. Essentially that our free will is taken away because when we make a decision, God decreed that we were going to make that decision. When we choose to go this route, God decreed that we were going to choose that route. So again, I feel bad. I don't know how the Calvinists would phrase this particular. I don't know if they would say directly, well, we don't have any free will, more so logically implying that we don't have free will because God is the one declaring various things. So I was going to take us to John, chapter ten. Let's just go ahead and get into the kind of the first, I don't want to call it a problem passage that sounds bad. Talk about God's word in that way. Take us to the first difficult passage about this john, chapter ten. Of course, I guess the precursor to one of Jesus's famous I am statements in John ten. I'll go ahead and just read verses. I'm going to start in verse one. Give it a little bit more context here. John ten starting in verse one. Most assuredly, I say to you words of Jesus here, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way the same as a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow them for they know his voice. Fellas, I guess I'll turn over. Jack's been quiet to start this one. How do we deal with this one? I think we're going to go ahead and put our cards on the table here as we did last episode. We are not hyper Calvinists. We do believe that we have some level of free will. So how do we deal with this one? Jack, I'll hand this over to you. [00:06:15] Speaker C: Yeah, so as we said, this is a bit of a continuation of last week with the Calvinism and the unconditional election. And that's where they would point to is verses like this to say he picked people and only the ones that he picked are going to hear that call. This is where you get into kind of the scripture wars thing, as I call it, where you, okay, well, you've got this verse. We've got this verse. But as we brought up last week, John 316, some people would say, well, see, the Bible contradicts itself. No, I don't think it does. I think you do have to take it broadly. God did call everyone. Jesus did die for everyone. He wants all to be saved. And we've got all the verses that say things like that. And then they go along with this, of some are going to recognize his voice and some aren't. And this kind of goes to what we talked about last week of the man or the plan kind of thing of well, those that respond to the call are the ones that are going to hear those kind of. Which side of the horse are you putting the cart on? Is it you only hear his voice because God pre programmed you, predestined you, took away your free will to hear his voice. Or those that do, or that's the confirmation afterwards that, okay, those are the ones that. And so some people have kind of, and I think this was the armenian thing we got into a little bit last week, but we didn't flesh out this part of it that essentially God, people say that he looked down the corridors of history, looked down the passage of time, and he saw what people were going to be open hearted. And so he elected those people. He said, well, these are going to be the people that come, so I'm going to elect them. And so there's kind of a partial election. I don't think that's necessary. I think you're just kind of adding steps when it's just those that respond to the call are the ones that are the sheep. But again, as we said last week, these verses are more challenging than sometimes we give them credit for. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I do want to move on to the next one because we do have a series of these verses that we want to come to in terms of are we choosing God or is he choosing. So do we have free will to choose him? The second one is acts 239. Right? With this Pentecost. Peter's preaching a Pentecost. And he says in verse 39, of course, 38, we all know repent and need you to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. For the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Verse 39, for the promises for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. So once again, the question would be, do we have free will to come to him, or is God calling people unto himself? [00:08:48] Speaker B: Is there a select few that he calls? [00:08:50] Speaker A: Correct, a select few that really doesn't have anything to do with it. What I would say to this one is, what do you think Peter is trying to do here? He's eliciting their own repentance, saying, you put Jesus to death, make a choice. Same thing as Joshua, right? Like, you make a choice who you're going to serve. And he's saying the same thing here. Know, they say, what shall we do? He's eliciting a response for them to make a free will choice to repent for what they had done. So to me, I think even in this context, it makes it simple, like repent and each of you be baptized. Is there a choice in that or is there not? And they would say, okay, it's only for those who God called. Well, he's preaching to a bunch, probably a million plus, maybe not. In that one moment, there's twelve of the apostles spread out that are doing this. I think Matthias at that time was probably one. He's chosen, I was going to say chosen right before in chapter one. So there's twelve of them that are speaking with these in tongues right at Pentecost. But in Peter preaching, 3000 come, okay, from the hundreds of thousands that are at Pentecost, 2 million is what some people speculate. Maybe that's not a ton. Maybe that's all God's calling to himself. No, I would still say there is a level of. Those are the people that heard the message that were called, so to speak, like that, heard the call and responded. When he says what the Lord will call to himself, I think he's calling upon everyone. But we kind of had this discussion. [00:10:12] Speaker C: Last week how that works. [00:10:13] Speaker A: And it goes back to what Jack just kind of talked about, the sheep hearing the voice. But in this context, it very much seems like Peter is giving them an opportunity to make a free will choice for God. [00:10:24] Speaker B: Well, I would appeal also, just go back in Peter's sermon a little bit to when he's quoting from Joel two. What's the very last verse in that passage? For Joel two? I think it's verse 32. But for the purposes of acts two, it's verse 21 and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Obviously that's also, in my opinion, kind of foreshadowing that that's going to be open to gentiles as well. That literally whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But once again, to Joe's point, what do we see there? Seemingly a free will choice. A free will choice is to be made that whoever chooses to call upon the name of the Lord, those people are going to be saved. And again down the road where Joe just read, we do see that 3000 souls or so and then more as acts goes on, chose to call on the name of the Lord and those will be saved. Yeah, there just seems to be a free will choice going on there. And again, I don't want to just try to act like it's simple. I'm sure the Calvinists would have some kind of answer for this, but I think again, as you read acts two there, it does seem to indicate that there was a widespread call and a select few are the ones that answered the call. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Keep in mind what he's also saying in acts two here. When he says for you and your children and for all those who are far off, he's prepping the way for gentiles. As you said. That's the context here is as many as the Lord have called himself, you don't get to decide who God decides to call. And God decided to include the Gentiles, those who are far. [00:11:48] Speaker C: I don't think Peter knew that at this point as we see when he goes to Cornelius, like, well, hang on, these people, you know, to your point, even if he didn't know that it was God's got a bigger plan here, but it was part of the message. Even immediately, he didn't say, well, the promises for some of you, the promises, for those of you that respond, this promise is here, God's given this to you and your children and anybody. So even then he's not limiting it to say, well, it's the promises for the elect. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I've thought a lot about this since we recorded our last episode. For those of you who might not have listened, if you go, I don't remember the timestamp or anything, but a had an analogy that he used. Me and Jack, we're kind of trying to wrap our brains around it a little bit, but I've thought a little bit more about it since then and I do think it does make sense grammatically, logically, all those things to say for two things to be true one, if you project out a call to a large, vast majority of people, all of them were called, and yet those who answered the call, you can still also say that they are the called. Does that make sense? It makes sense that. [00:12:57] Speaker A: It absolutely makes sense. [00:12:59] Speaker B: I said it coming around to a little bit. But no, it makes sense that both of those things can be true. And I think that's where this one, again, this is where this lines up is. The call was to all, but those who answer the call are specifically the called. Does that make sense? [00:13:14] Speaker C: You could use the Gideon illustration of, like, all right, anybody who's scared, go home. Anybody who laps their water like a dog, go home. And so he narrows it down to 300. And you could say, well, those 300 were that God preselected those 300. Well, but how do we know they were preselected? Because of the choices they made, because of what they did. And so you've got instances like that where it works functionally the same way. [00:13:39] Speaker A: I was thinking about Jesus and talking about, hey, those who are invited, they decided not to come to the feast. Hey, go to the roadways and grab all the homeless. And everything's like that. And when they get there, it's like, hey, these people were invited. Yeah, they were. As were a bunch of other people that decided not to. But those who showed up were invited. It's the same concept, in my opinion. Now, fellas, what do we do with go all the way back to Exodus? You're looking at the ten plagues. What do we do with something like God hardening Pharaoh's heart? And it specifically says that he did Harden Pharaoh's heart. Now, we hear the same son softens butter and hardens clay, things like that. And so it was more God putting that on there. But there are times when Pharaoh's letting him go. And then God, it literally says God hardened his heart to it. So did Pharaoh harden his heart even though he was going to let him go, or did God harden his heart? Was there free will choice in that? Or did God take away some of the free will choice from Pharaoh? [00:14:33] Speaker B: So here's what's interesting. As I was just kind of going through, I flip back to Exodus while Zach was talking a second ago. It isn't until after the 6th plague that you see that phrase, that the Lord hardened his heart. So, for instance, after the first plague, chapter seven, verse 23, Pharaoh turned, went into his house. Neither was his heart moved by all this. After the second plague, chapter eight, verse 15, when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and did not heed them, as the lord had said. After the third plague, chapter eight, verse, let's see, 19. But Pharaoh's heart grew hard and did not heed them. After the fourth plague, chapter eight, verse 32. But Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also. Neither would he let people go. After the fifth plague, chapter nine, verse seven. Then Pharaoh sent, and indeed not even one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh became hard and not let the people go. It's not until the 6th plague, chapter nine, verse twelve. But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh and he did not heed them. And so the context that the reason why I felt the need to bring all that up is because. Yeah, you do have the question. Because it's after the 6th plague. It's after the, I believe, the 8th plague. And then, of course, it just kind of escalates from there after the 9th plague as well, that the Lord does the hardening. Pharaoh's heart was already primed to be hard, I guess, is the way that I would put that he himself, according to the text, had, quote unquote, hardened his heart, became know, however you want to put it five times before God, quote unquote, stepped in. And so did God take away Pharaoh's free will by hardening at the later times. [00:16:07] Speaker C: Tough question. [00:16:08] Speaker B: All I know to add to the context is Pharaoh seemed to be pretty good at hardening his heart already before God stepped in. [00:16:15] Speaker A: Read ten, verse one, though. Then the Lord said to Moses, go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son and your grandson how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I perform my signs among them, that you may know that I am the Lord. So God, he takes credit for it. I have hardened his heart. And it was. [00:16:38] Speaker C: Well, specifically read the verses two before that, 934 and 35, when Pharaoh saw the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart. He and his servants. Pharaoh's heart was hardened. And so you've got three verses in a row of Pharaoh hardened his heart. His heart was hardened, kind of passive. And then God hardened his heart. And again, kind of to Will's point, he was the first one to harden his own heart. He looked and he's like, oh, God stopped the know, like, and the arrogance comes back in. And then where God is claiming credit for it, it's. Well, yeah, God sent the plague and then took the plague away, which caused Pharaoh to do that. But it's kind of like, well, you made me mad. Well, I decided to get mad. But the actions you did created the know, like the elicited response to pave the way for it. [00:17:22] Speaker A: I would say to this, this is. [00:17:23] Speaker C: Where I think this all gets really interesting. Pharaoh had free will. Pharaoh at any point in here could have said, I'm wrong, please stop with the plagues. [00:17:34] Speaker A: I get it. [00:17:35] Speaker C: Your God's powerful. You guys go ahead, I'll let you go. But you see, all the way back at the burning bush, God said, I'm going to send you to Pharaoh. He's not going to let you go. So then I'm going to show my power, and then I'm going to get you guys out of there. Because remember, the request was not, hey, let my people just up and leave and go to the promised land. It was, can we go worship you? Well, the reason that was the request is he knew Pharaoh was going to deny it and that was going to create again, just build the canvas for this to be played out on. And then the ten plagues are going to happen, then Egypt's going to be destroyed and they're going to be totally brought out of there. God didn't start off with, all right, let's go down there and kill all the Egyptians. It needed Pharaoh's hardening. And so again, Pharaoh had free will to do that. But God knew, and he picked a man who didn't know. Joseph didn't acknowledge God. All the things that it know was the first one, and then probably the next pharaoh when Moses comes back, this was a person who, everything in his life led him to be this kind of person. And God looks at that and goes, yeah, this arrogant guy. That's the one. [00:18:35] Speaker B: I'm going to use that for my purpose. [00:18:36] Speaker C: Yes, I can push this guy's button. Here's where he has free will, but it's conditioned free will. [00:18:45] Speaker B: So let me ask you, Jack, because, mean, I'm, I'm right there with you. But where, I'm seeing kind of a hole in my own argument here. Do you believe that God, quote unquote stepped in, yes or no? [00:18:57] Speaker C: Stepped in as in, like, forced pharaoh to do something, took control. [00:19:07] Speaker B: I even skipped out of chapter 14, where they're already out of Egypt. And then it says in verse eight, the Lord hardened the heart of pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel. Did God? [00:19:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:17] Speaker B: I mean, I don't want to say forced, but did God influence, let's say that. Did God influence it in any way to where Pharaoh again, they're out of Egypt and he's just sitting on, sitting in his palace or whatever. And because of something God did elicited pharaoh to say, all right, you know what? I'm going to go chase after them. Or do you think that was still 100% all pharaoh? [00:19:36] Speaker C: I would say you see this in the kings a little bit. Like with Saul, God says, all right, I'm not with you anymore. I'm taking my spirit away and an evil spirit comes in. And in a sense, that's God just being like, all right, I'm leaving Saul to these other influences. I'm pulling away the positive influence here and allowing bad influence to drive him the wrong way, to chase David, to set up everything that's about to happen. Because I told Saul, you don't get to be king anymore. We need some things to happen. So he dies and his family gets. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Out of the way. [00:20:01] Speaker C: So David gets to be king. So let's kind of set those wheels in motion without him, just like again, taking the puppet strings and going, okay, Saul, here's how it's going to know. I don't think he's pulling puppet strings with pharaoh. [00:20:13] Speaker A: I disagree. I actually think he does. I think pharaoh hardens his heart for the first few. And I think when pharaoh's going to let him go, God goes, you're not done. You're not done. I'm keeping you in this. Why? Because two reasons. First off, he is systematically breaking through every egyptian God, and he's letting them know, don't even come close to these guys. And it ends. Know, of course, the Passover. That's the second part, which is. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Hang on, real quick. [00:20:34] Speaker C: Joe just said pharaoh doesn't have free will. [00:20:36] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say. So do you think God, to a. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Certain degree, will away? Yes, I actually do. Because I look at it and I say he needed the Passover to happen. The Passover only happens on the 10th plague. The Passover foreshadows communion, the Lord's supper. God knows all this. We're going to get an open. [00:20:51] Speaker C: Okay, no, hold on. Why did you give him the free will for the first few? If God had to have this happen? Well, then that might not have happened if pharaoh on number two because, okay, right. [00:21:03] Speaker A: I think as soon as pharaoh is like, okay, I'm done. No, you're not done. He lets him make his own decisions. [00:21:08] Speaker B: Up to essentially pharaoh got him the way there. And then you're saying God took him the rest of the 30%. [00:21:14] Speaker C: Why? I think if pharaoh had, he's already down that road. [00:21:16] Speaker A: He would have. [00:21:17] Speaker C: Pharaoh did that the whole time. Okay, fine. No, I don't have any problem thinking. [00:21:23] Speaker A: That God would step into the lives of certain people and potentially take away free will to bring about his plan. [00:21:28] Speaker C: Well, he didn't even do that with Judas. I mean, the one person out of anybody who ever existed he needed to make sure, made that happen. [00:21:35] Speaker B: He allowed Satan to enter him, though. [00:21:37] Speaker A: Right? [00:21:38] Speaker C: Which is a different is as you've been brought to that point where you've opened yourself up to negative influence, to satan's influence, to demonic influence. Saul, with the evil spirit or whatever. [00:21:47] Speaker A: That you're being sifted, like. [00:21:51] Speaker C: God will allow you, but he's not the one coming and taking away your free will. Because the other thing is, does he ever do that for good? Does he ever force somebody to do good? [00:22:03] Speaker B: Well, here's what I would ask you in response to this is that would seem to insinuate that God caused pharaoh to sin. [00:22:11] Speaker A: God. [00:22:11] Speaker B: That's physically impossible for God to do. [00:22:13] Speaker C: Right. This is a gripe with the calvinist. The hypercalvanism idea is that God is responsible for all sin. [00:22:19] Speaker A: I don't think it's necessarily sin to turn his heart away from or to harden his heart to letting the people. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Go to pridefully to reject the will. Reject God? [00:22:29] Speaker A: No, because I think the pride was already in place. To your point. I think the pride was already in place. I think God is allowing his will to work out. He needed him to get to all ten. [00:22:40] Speaker C: Well, but here's kind of what you're getting at, though, is kind of the whole, okay, God, Pharaoh was going along with the plan and everything was going okay. And then God goes, oh, no, he's not going along with the plan. I got to put my thumb on the scale, gotta, I gotta come in, jump into the game. The referee of the game just intercepted the ball and ran it back for a touchdown because the score was not going to be what he wanted it to be. I don't agree with that. I think it's. Man, we've got Jameis Winston out there. He's going to throw a let me bait him into a quarterback spy. Like, oh, I'm going to blitz him kind of thing. [00:23:13] Speaker A: No. [00:23:16] Speaker B: Analogy. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Sorry. [00:23:18] Speaker A: How much free will does he have if God literally takes away every other option but for him to harden his heart? [00:23:23] Speaker C: I don't think he. This is my point is he always had the option but his pride was so much that it doubled because look at Nebuchadnezzar. That's somebody that, again, God very much stepped in as like, all right, try this on for size. And he comes to his senses. He had the opportunity, he had the. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Out in that he intervened in the life of Nebuchadnezzar. The same way you think a Nebuchadnezzar starts eating grass like an animal without God doing that to him. [00:23:48] Speaker C: That's God's discipline. Okay, but that's what I'm saying is that not taking away free will, no punishment and discipline. But when did he come out of that? When he acknowledged, oh, God's God, and I'm not. Okay, so stay with Pharaoh. Not taking away his free will because again, if you're eating like grass, if. [00:24:07] Speaker A: He took away his free will, he. [00:24:08] Speaker C: Would not be able to get himself out of it by repentance. It was basically, it's the same thing you do with your kid. All right, as soon as you eat this stuff, you can leave the table. Well, they might sit. They still have the free will. Yeah, but you're forcing them to stay there. Yes, you've taken away that function of their free will, but they still have. [00:24:29] Speaker A: The free will to make that choice he ultimately wanted. My point is he ultimately wanted Pharaoh to make the choice of letting the. [00:24:35] Speaker C: People go, but he also knew that he was going to make the choices that he like, this is my point. [00:24:40] Speaker A: I would agree. [00:24:42] Speaker C: You agree with us, but I'm saying. [00:24:44] Speaker A: He narrowed the options. He narrowed the options for him. [00:24:47] Speaker C: That's my point is all of our free will is incredibly conditional in a closed system. [00:24:51] Speaker A: But I don't think he needed it to get to ten. [00:24:54] Speaker C: I genuinely don't. God did not have to come into this and go, okay, well, until Pharaoh starts going a little squirrely on me, then I'll make him do it. It's, this guy has got a pride problem and I can push these buttons all day long. [00:25:09] Speaker A: I would say he squeezed him to the point of giving no other option but for him to harden his heart real quick. Literally, if Pharaoh at six had said, okay, I'm going to let him go, that doesn't accomplish God's purpose. He needed him to get to all ten. [00:25:22] Speaker C: But this is, I'm not disagreeing with that. It's, did God know that Pharaoh was going to keep on going? Or like, hey, if I press this button again, guess what's going to mean? Okay, like back to the future. Everybody knows. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Does he actually have free will? [00:25:35] Speaker C: If you call Marty McFly a chicken. He's going to try and fight you. Okay. Does he not have free will? Oh, I called him a chicken. Now he's going to start fighting. Well, I guess I just took away his free will. No, the guy just has no impulse control. [00:25:48] Speaker A: I don't see it. In my opinion, I think you narrowed the options all the way down to there's one option, which is you're going to harden your heart. [00:25:54] Speaker C: So, yes, there were two options there. There was again the same option Nebuchadnezzar had of go. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:26:00] Speaker C: Okay. [00:26:00] Speaker B: So I'm going to bring this up. I'm going to bring this up, Jack, because I agree with you, Jack. But what do you do with. This is exactly what Joe's talking about. After the 8th plague, which was locusts, Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron in haste and said, I've sinned against the Lord your God and against you now. Therefore, please forgive my sin only once. Entreat the Lord your God. He may take away from me this death only. So he went out from Pharaoh and treated the Lord, and the Lord turned a very strong west, went into the locust way, verse 20. But the Lord then hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not let the children of Israel go. So would your position be pharaoh is just kind of lying and bluffing and then decided, or did the Lord step in, which is kind of what? [00:26:36] Speaker C: No, I mean, put yourself in the timeline of, fine, you know, I give up. I let them go. And then. How many times have you done this? You sit there and you just kind of stew on your decision, like, I'm not going to let them go. I'm not giving up my slaves. What did I just do? [00:26:50] Speaker A: Why say, the Lord hardened his heart? Why say that when it clearly has said in the text previously, he's hardened his own heart? Why in that moment, say it. Because he's bringing about his specific result and he's not going to. [00:27:01] Speaker C: So then just say your conclusion. God made Pharaoh sin. [00:27:06] Speaker A: It's not making Pharaoh sin hardening his heart so as to say, I'm not going to allow them to leave. [00:27:15] Speaker C: So he made him lie. He made him a liar. He did. He said, okay, I give up. I repent. I've done wrong before the Lord. Wait, no, I didn't. I'm going back on. [00:27:26] Speaker A: How do you. How would you then say, why would it say, the Lord hardened his heart? And why did Pharaoh. I don't know why Pharaoh would reneg, other than the fact that God goes, you're not done you're climbing out of the ring. He goes, okay, fine, I'm done. No, you're not done. You're not done. I'm going to utterly destroy you. I'm going to make sure that everybody. [00:27:41] Speaker B: In it, like when you frame it in that way. I understand what you're saying about the etiquette, but when you frame it in the, Pharaoh had tapped out and no, no, that does imply that God essentially made Pharaoh sin as opposed to what Jack is saying, which is pharaoh was already. And what I brought up earlier, Pharaoh was already primed to harden his heart. Already done. Time and time again. He was kind of on the edge. And God pushed the right button, so to speak. And Pharaoh chose to maybe took away all his options, however you want to put it. But Pharaoh still chose to harden his own heart. But it was because the Lord had taken all his options away. Does that make sense where I'm falling? [00:28:19] Speaker A: Yeah, right. If he takes all his options away, though, that is taking away free will. [00:28:26] Speaker C: Essentially, they made him sin. I mean, just say that. [00:28:30] Speaker A: I don't think it's necessarily sin to harden the heart. So as for God to bring about the greater result. I think, yes, he did use Pharaoh's arrogance. He did everything. But at the same time, there is a level of. I don't think that. I don't know. I think God needed it again to go all ten plagues. And yes, he could have very easily used it. I see your point. [00:28:53] Speaker C: He could have very easily used it. [00:28:55] Speaker A: The wording is very dubious. [00:28:56] Speaker C: This is my point. If he made Pharaoh do the wrong, did he make Nebuchadnezzar come back around? [00:29:03] Speaker A: I think he has a. Nebuchadnezzar had the right. But God's consequences were, I think he gave Nebuchadnezzar the opportunity to come back around the same way he gave it to Pharaoh at ten, after the 10th plague of like, finally leave, he gave him the opportunity to do it. Pharaoh had again. Even after eight, Pharaoh was going to let him go. Pharaoh continued to go back and make the same mistakes. But my point is, God continued to work the circumstances where there was only one option that was going to happen. It's not God making pharaoh sin. Pharaoh walks into the sin. But God did. This is heavily stacked. [00:29:41] Speaker C: If you know what somebody's going to do. Did you make them do it? No. I mean, there's certain things that happen throughout the day where I know 100%, 100 times out of 100, what my wife is going to say, and she does. That doesn't mean I made her do it. I can even create the situation that would lead her to say that phrase like inside jokes that we have and stuff like that, and just put the thing on a t and set her up to do it. I didn't actually make her do it up until that point. I just knew that she was going to. [00:30:10] Speaker A: You put a thief in a bank with no security and nobody watching. What do you think is going to happen, however, if you put the thief in the bank and you're the only one that puts the thief in the bank? [00:30:20] Speaker C: You pretty heavily stacked the ods and. [00:30:22] Speaker A: He was going to do it. [00:30:23] Speaker C: God using, but you still didn't take her as well. [00:30:25] Speaker A: Exactly. He still did it. He still did it himself like the thief did what the thief does. However, where's the bend in free will? You put him in the bank, you didn't put him in some store with a ton of security. You didn't put him in the middle of. [00:30:40] Speaker C: This is my point about free will is always incredibly conditional because one of the things we haven't talked about with pharaoh is this is a guy who very clearly was raised up to think he was, as we say back in the 90s, all that in a bag of chips. He just thought he was the world, which again, he probably was the most powerful man in the world. Give him that. This is probably somebody who was not raised being told, no, this was not somebody who was raised who had a life where he ever had to defer to anybody or realize, hey, I'm not God. And so now he has all of those circumstances. And so this is my point about free will is conditional. It's the same today. We like to think that everybody is born with the same percent chance of being saved. That's just not true. Somebody born in the Soviet Union, 1950, did not have the same chance of going, of being saved as somebody born into a christian family in the american south in 1965. You just don't. And you can say, well, did God take away the soviet person's free will? No. There were so many circumstances that led generations, 2000 years that led to the birth of those two people and all of the things that parents and grandparents and ancestors all the way back, decisions that were made, the churches that were started, I mean, we've got Campbell and Stone, we're here having this podcast today largely because guys like that did the work that they did. So we can say, oh, I've chose this by free will. Yeah, but this whole cascade of options led you to, here's the choice that you have to make here's the options you have to choose from. That's how God works. We don't have the. Not only you can, but you are likely, just as likely to choose one of 10 billion options. No. The likelihood increases so much by all the influences you have on you. I think God, all of the things in the Bible are done in the fullness of time. When you've got this executive over the most powerful nation in the world that has come to that point, the arrogance. He didn't. As we see the start of Exodus, these are people that have forgotten what Israel's there for. They've forgotten Israel's God, they've forgotten Joseph, all that stuff. And it leads to this pharaoh and kind of his insecurity, kind of his whatever it is. That's why. That's the pharaoh that God picked. This might be why Moses needed 40 years in exile. And then God's like, all right, now go. Because that guy's in. And I can use that guy in the same way. He said, you don't get Canaan until the iniquity of the amorites is complete. I'm going to wait until the right time for that. The same with Nebuchadnezzar. The same with Beltashazar. The handwriting on the wall that he was arrogant like Nebuchadnezzar. And God comes in and is like, yeah, we got a problem. I'm getting rid of you. Where Nebuchadnezzar had the chance to repent, was that fair? I mean, we always want everything to be equal and fair and 100% it doesn't work that way. And so I think pharaoh very much had very limited options, partly because of his own arrogance, but partly because of everything that led him to be in that moment. [00:33:38] Speaker A: I mean, I get your point. I get all of the things that have led up to. [00:33:44] Speaker C: Pharaoh makes pharaoh. [00:33:46] Speaker A: I didn't say he made pharaoh sin. I'm saying free will. Look, if I say, hey, son, today you're having froot loops for breakfast, and he know, or all I say is, hey, we got a box of froot loops and some milk. What's for breakfast? Well, that's all we got. And then he eats fruit loops and milk. Whoa, whoa. I didn't make him. He could have chosen not to eat breakfast. Like, there's one option, man. I mean, there's literally one option. [00:34:10] Speaker B: You took free will away. [00:34:11] Speaker A: I didn't take his free will. [00:34:12] Speaker C: Well, but this is my point. He didn't have to have the fruit loops. You're saying pharaoh had to do not because pharaoh's options here are pharaoh had to be hardened and double down or pharaoh had to let them go. Like say, okay, I'm going to drop them. [00:34:27] Speaker A: Could he have let them go before the Passover? [00:34:29] Speaker C: You're saying no? [00:34:32] Speaker A: I'm saying, of course not. The Passover had to happen. You're saying, yeah, at eight he could have gone. You really think that? [00:34:38] Speaker C: You really think that? God was saying he had the option, but God knew that he wasn't going to take that option, so he kept pressing the button. [00:34:43] Speaker B: That makes the most sense. [00:34:45] Speaker A: Who kept pressing the button? [00:34:47] Speaker C: God did. [00:34:49] Speaker A: Okay. Why did God need to press the button? [00:34:51] Speaker C: God kept calling chicken. God kept calling Marty McFly chicken. Now you remember again, back to the future lore. Shout out to Michael J. Fox for helping me out with the free will. Philosophical question here. By the end of the arc, his character has progressed to the point that flea from the red hot chili peppers is suddenly in the back to the future series, calls him chicken and tries to get him to raise. [00:35:12] Speaker A: Never made sense. [00:35:13] Speaker C: And he decides he's not going to do it because he has outgrown the inferiority complex that doesn't allow people to call him chicken. Okay. And so at any point, anybody who called him chicken was pressing that button. He learned to turn the button off and say, you can't control me with that. Well, I mean, you have this in the Bible about by that which angers you is by what you were controlled. You can say God controlled Pharaoh by angering him, by pushing the button on his pride, like, hey, you're going to let those people go? You really going to do that? You really going to give this up? You're really going to let those hebrew goat herders get this one over on you? And you can just see Pharaoh going, yeah, I'm not going to do that. He didn't have to. He could have again, in the same way Nebuchadnezzar like, okay, I'm eating grass. This is stupid. I'm broken. I give. Finally. [00:36:03] Speaker A: Let'S say he didn't take away free will. He heavily intervened. God heavily intervened in this to make sure he brought about the perfect result. Take away free will. [00:36:14] Speaker C: There's things in which God, because this heavily intervened us into a very interesting. [00:36:18] Speaker B: Discussion about the providence of God. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Right? [00:36:21] Speaker B: How much does God, quote unquote, step in? Does he tweak the outcomes of things? Yeah, go ahead. [00:36:26] Speaker C: Let me give an example of that. John the Baptist. You look at that like, hey, before this kid's born, he's going to go preach the gospel. He's going to go pave the way for Jesus. And you look at it like, how much did John even have a choice? And somebody made the point to me, and this is a very great point. Look at Samson. Same thing. Samson and Samuel at the same time, very closely paralleled, even though they're not in the text, one next to each other, but time wise, just different parts of Israel. And with both of them, it's, hey, here's a promise from God. This child's going to know. Samson is, he's going to be a Nazarite, he's going to do all these things. Samuel, pretty faithful guy, doesn't raise the best kids, but like a strong Judge, prophet, all the things that he did. Samson, he's a nutcase. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Samson, a train wreck. [00:37:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, he's got women problems. He's got a big mouth. He's just a knucklehead. I mean, he's just all of these things and yet he still accomplishes God's will. He still takes out a bunch of philistines. He still wins battles and does some of the things that God had prepared for him to do. Did he have to do it perfectly? No, he had a choice. He made a bunch of bad choices. But God ultimately got him to where he wanted him. [00:37:36] Speaker B: This is where I see the fundamental difference in our positions is if God set Pharaoh on a path, and as we're saying, he took all the options away and basically this is the path pharaoh is going to walk down because God intervened. Joe's position is that is taking his free will away. I guess mine and Jack's position is more so it's not necessarily taking his free will that, okay, I'm not going. [00:38:00] Speaker A: To say I'll revise my statement. He's not taking his free will away. [00:38:05] Speaker B: That's a victory, Jack. That's a victory. [00:38:07] Speaker A: He's still unity to make the decision. The decision is just one of mean. It is so heavily stacked where it would appear he did not have, that way we could look at and go, okay, God didn't actually choose for him. Pharaoh still chose to do wrong. I agree with you. God does not compel anybody to sin. But the circumstances that God put him in were so compelling to sin, Pharaoh still made a choice. [00:38:31] Speaker B: So here's another example, and we're going to get into this question a little bit later. My kid walks away. I pray to God for ten years that my kid will return back to the faith. The kid does return back to the faith. Was that a God stepping in intervening, putting circumstances in front of my kid to turn him back? Or did he take my kid's free will away like Jack is saying, for the good? Or is that completely still a free will choice of my child to come back to the faith? [00:39:03] Speaker A: Are you asking me or are you. [00:39:04] Speaker B: Asking Jack generically asking? [00:39:07] Speaker C: You're the guy who's Mr. No free will here, so you roll with that. I'm not saying there's no free will. [00:39:11] Speaker A: I would say God gives us free will, no doubt. But there are times where God so heavily skews things so as to bring about his needs. I think he did the same thing with Judas. I think he did the same thing with multiple people throughout the Old Testament, where God used the specific person with a specific bent, with a specific everything else with specific circumstances to specifically bring about a specific thing. [00:39:37] Speaker B: And I think, meaning I think our position is, yes, he did all that, and their free will was still not taken away. [00:39:43] Speaker A: They still had the opportunity to choose it. But again, the choices were so much basically made for them that I'm not saying this happens all the time. I think God mainly does. [00:39:53] Speaker C: The key in this one is Esther 414 of hey, look at this. Even if you don't, who's the queen? Wow, that worked out really nicely. God put her there and you would look at it and go like, God forced Esther to do this. And Malachi. Not Malachi, Mordecai. Wrong uncle, wrong guy. Mordecai says, if you don't, God's not going to let his people die. However, maybe you were here for such a time as this, one way or the other, because God's will was, I can't let the people be extinguished. Right? Because he's got the grand plan of the messiah has to come about, and if all the jews everywhere are killed, that doesn't happen. So he's not going to let that happen. But what Mordecai is telling Esther is you've got a choice to play a role in this. And it kind of goes to the c. S. Lewis quote about, you're gonna do God's will one way or another. John did God's will. Judas did, you know, in the sense of God makes all things work together for good. I think is part of this as well, is like, whatever you give him, he'll get. Because I think this also goes to the point with you. Would you say that pharaoh does not qualify under God wants all to come to repentance. God doesn't want Pharaoh to come to repentance because then God would. Guys, we got to recalculate some things. He's a good guy. Now we can't have the Passover. Oh, boy. The ideal would have been Pharaoh going, because look what happens at the end of the Old Testament. Again, the Persians, you've got this king who comes to power and he goes, you know what? I'm here. Your God, the God of the Jews. He wants me to rebuild your temple. So that's what we're going to do. You guys are going back, here's a bunch of gold and stuff to go rebuild the temple. Amen. Get on out of here. Go build your. Like that would have been what God wanted for Pharaoh, isn't it? [00:41:38] Speaker A: I would agree that God. But he also knew. Yeah, to your point, he also knew he wasn't going to, but he still pressed the buttons so as to bring. [00:41:45] Speaker C: That because he wasn't going to do it. Then it's like, all right, let's set this plan in motion. [00:41:52] Speaker A: If God did not press the buttons, would Pharaoh have done it? Would God have brought things about if he had not pushed the buttons that he did? [00:42:02] Speaker C: Well, I mean, then you're just saying nothing happens. I'm not saying nothing happens. God, his ultimate plan was to get them, give them the law, get them into the promised land, right? But again, his plan was to get them to the promised land. And a whole generation was like, yeah, no thanks. And so he's like, all right, well, 40 years in the wilderness, and that doesn't mean that God had to go like, oh, no, my plan didn't work. Let's come up with a plan b on the fly. You guys aren't going to get it. I know. You guys are a wicked generation that's got too much of the Egyptians in you still. And so you die. You're going to die. Did God want them to go on the promised land? [00:42:34] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. I would agree that God brings about his ultimate will. I just think he pushes things in a direction where there's basically one way to bring about that will. [00:42:43] Speaker C: Well, again, it's the same thing. You tell your kids, I tell my kids, there's an easy way this is going to happen or there's a hard way this is going to happen. You can take the pick here and the easy way is the right choice. But if you don't pick it, your room is still going to get clean. [00:42:59] Speaker A: We still have free will in that. Yes, we still have free will in that. I just think God heavily skews things so as to bring about our free will choices. [00:43:06] Speaker C: I'm heavily skewing to get the room clean. [00:43:10] Speaker A: Right. [00:43:11] Speaker C: Going. This room is going to get clean. [00:43:13] Speaker A: So, to your point, we don't have absolute free will. There's a bazillion things pushing on us. [00:43:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I would agree. One of the big mistakes that a. The humanists, the atheist humanist people make is, oh, we're just the blank slate. Tabularaza. You're born with all the choices and they even tell kids this in elementary school. You can be anything. Any of you can be president. No, you can't. Most of you, by the time you're five years old, like a slew of. [00:43:37] Speaker B: Qualified yourself from being. [00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:38] Speaker C: A slew of options have been taken off the table, whether it's by your intelligence, by your upbringing, by just all kinds of things. We think every individual starts off life with all of the same things. I'm sorry. No matter what choices I made, there was not a world in which five foot nine, redheaded me was getting to the NBA. It just wasn't going to happen. I'm sorry. And so, well, I don't have free will because I didn't have the option to become an NBA star. I do have free will, just in a range, and everybody has it in a range. And to your pharaoh, like, again, it's God coming in and saying, my people are going to the promised land of Canaan. We can do this the easy way. [00:44:20] Speaker A: Or the hard way. [00:44:20] Speaker C: And pharaoh goes, hard way. Hard way. Hard. No, no. [00:44:23] Speaker A: Okay, easy. [00:44:25] Speaker C: Like, because the arrogance was there that God kept pushing on, like, hey, this is going to happen whether you like it or not. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And pharaoh goes, no, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. And so you end up with, okay, well, we'll just keep doing this until I kill you. And again, okay, you got to go back to the conversation of the burning bush where God says all of this beforehand. God goes, I'm going to send you. Pharaoh's not going to like it. We're going to have this big thing. I'm going to show my glory. Like, this is an opportunity for me to let everybody know because one of the other things is when they get to Canaan, what does Rahab say? Yeah, no, we heard about your God. We're scared to death. And God had planned that whole thing of, like, look, they're not going to let you go. And so I'm going to get to, as you said, destroy all their gods, make a show of it. Let the whole world know, don't mess with these, you know, again, he planned all of that ahead and it wasn't him telling Pharaoh, I'm going to tell Moses. I'm going to rag doll Pharaoh around and just make sure he doesn't let you go until I'm ready to let you go. It's this guy's got a problem and we're going to go exploit. That is my read of what's happening there. [00:45:31] Speaker B: Okay, it looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree on this. Joe does not seem, I think we. [00:45:36] Speaker A: Probably agree more than we disagree. I think the nature by which I'm not. Okay. [00:45:42] Speaker B: I think God is Joe's heart right now. [00:45:44] Speaker C: Yeah, there you go. Use your free will to make a better choice here. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm going to move us into Joe, unless you've got one. Closing comments, I guess, on. [00:45:57] Speaker A: Go for it. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Okay, so I'm going to move us into, and we could have gone into first kings 22, romans nine. There's a whole lot more here. But for the sake of time, we got a few more big time questions. We got to get to open theism. There's so many, which I probably should have let one of these guys describe open theism. Joe watched probably 30 videos on it. In fact, Joe, why don't you do that? And then let me get into God changing his mind point because I've got some scriptures pulled up for that. [00:46:23] Speaker A: I've been fascinated by this idea. Yeah, I've been fascinated by it because open theism is the idea that God doesn't really know the future and by fascinated. I don't subscribe to this. However, it is an interesting thought that God doesn't. He kind of lets it unravel. God is on our timeline. I think there are verses that he. [00:46:41] Speaker C: Put a blindfold on like he could have known. Correct. He chooses not to know. Yeah. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Which it's not a matter of God not having the power. [00:46:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:46:49] Speaker A: It's a matter of God choosing to put himself on our timeline going, okay, I will make work as it goes. I'll take every decision made in the present. The future doesn't exist basically is what they're saying. And therefore, since the future doesn't exist, he's not dealing with anything that he's dealing with things that don't exist. It's like, well, he's God. He can deal with anything he wants. However, there is this concept of like as we go along, he builds and this is where they get to is now, I know that you have the faith. Why does he tell Abraham that? Now I know those are the concepts here, I think. Yes. Genesis 20, is it right? 22, yeah. Where he tests with, you're going to sacrifice Isaac. He goes, he actually is about to pass the test. And he says, whoa, whoa, wait, here's a ramcot. And the thicket lets him sacrifice that. But he says, now I know. Why would he use that language? This is the concept of open theism. [00:47:37] Speaker B: Is like 22, verse twelve. [00:47:38] Speaker A: He genuinely didn't know that that was going to happen. Now he does know, and he can build accordingly where this falls apart. I'll just say it right off the bat, then, will I let you kind of get into some of this, where this falls apart, in my opinion. And I watched a ton on this, trying to understand how they understand prophecy. How does Jesus tell Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows? Well, he knew Peter kind of to your point. He knew Peter's dispositions. He knew kind of what led him up to no three times before the rooster crows. That's very specific. How in the world did he know that there is no. I understand the heart of man, quote unquote. That gets you to that point. There's a lot of prophecy. You can explain some of the prophecies that way, where God kind of works it in as he goes. But I do believe that there are some that are so specific. Psalm 22, he's going to hang on a tree talking about crucifixion. There's no possible way for David to know that when he's writing that psalm of what's going to happen without God having some concept of the future. So open theism just leaves the future very open toward anything. God doesn't actually know he's on our timeline. And I do believe God puts himself on our timeline in ways, but that's a different discussion. [00:48:43] Speaker B: Anyway, fuel for will to add fuel to the fire here, because I would ask Joe, because I agree, of course, with you. So why did he phrase it that way? Now, I know in Genesis 22, verse twelve, you also have the passages where it doesn't say God changed his mind. I think some translations do. But, for instance, in Exodus 32, when the Israelites form the golden calf, Moses comes down from the mountain. God says, moses, back out of the way. I'm going to wipe the floor with everybody. And Moses, essentially, it seems as though, convinces God, stays his hand. And the text says in verse 14, at least in my translation, that the Lord relented from the harm which he would do to his people. We see that also in Jeremiah, chapter 26, verse 19. Again, some translations will say the Lord changed his mind. New King James says, the Lord relented from harm. Again, the open theist would say, see, God didn't know what he was going to do. And the circumstances, our timeline, whatever, led God to make the decision that he did? Because the question would be, well, if God knew that he wasn't going to kill all the Israelites, then why did Moses have to, quote, unquote, convince him? That's a tough one. I mean, you also have Genesis 18, where Abraham is seemingly bargaining with God about Sodom and Gomorrah, where. Okay, well, if I can find 50, if I can find 40, 30, 2010, whatever. If God knew what he was going to do, why did he kind of go through that whole charade? And so, yeah, these are tough questions, because this is where the open theists get their, again, kind of fuel for their fire here. What would you guys. I guess we'll turn it over to Jack here. Jack, what would you say to some of those? You don't have to answer all of them, but you've got Exodus 32, Jeremiah 26, God changing his mind, so to speak. And then Genesis 18. [00:50:28] Speaker C: I think the Abraham one is the easiest one, where, I mean, like, God knows there's Sodom and Gomorrah, there's nothing saved. It's almost like he's, out of respect to Abraham, kind of entertaining the charade of, sure, man, if there are that many, there's not. If there's this many, there's not. And kind, it's leading Abraham to the point of like, wow, those people got to. [00:50:48] Speaker A: This place is toast. [00:50:49] Speaker C: Yeah, like, okay, let's just get lot out and call it a day. Pave it to the ground. Because that one, he doesn't actually change. It's because the outcome is there's not anybody there. There's not even ten. And so if you know that there's five, really all we know that there was one righteous person. It doesn't seem like his family was righteous enough either. So you got one righteous person in the whole city. God can go. Sure, 50, 40, 30, 20. Yeah, absolutely. I guess we don't have it, but the Moses one is a little harder because it is. And there's, I think, in numbers as well. God does the same thing. Like, all right, Moses and Aaron, let's. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Start fresh with you. [00:51:25] Speaker C: Everybody's going to go, I'm getting rid of everybody. And with it's Moses appeals to, you know, hey, you made a promise. You chose these people. You said this was how it's going to be, and because of who you. So his character cannot change. God can't. So with that, you know, okay, this wasn't actually going to happen because it would be inconsistent with God's character. God did not need an omniscient, all knowing. God did not need Moses to go. Remember, you made a promise, and God, you're did. [00:52:01] Speaker A: I did. [00:52:02] Speaker C: Thanks, Moses, for bringing up the old. I. I thought I had the solution here. [00:52:07] Speaker B: Why go through those four or five verses then? What's the point? Do you think it's more so for Moses's purposes? [00:52:13] Speaker C: Yeah, for Moses's purposes. And also just the text says, level of anger he had. But this is what they. I think even that shows his character of, like, look, this is what you guys deserve. This is what I would do if I were a less patient God. [00:52:29] Speaker B: And that makes sense, I guess the puzzling thing for me is when the text says the Lord relented from the harm, that seems to indicate the harm was at the door, and God said, all right, fine. And backed up. And I know that's just my reading of it, but there's a few things. [00:52:47] Speaker C: Like that in Genesis as well, where it speaks of God thinking the way, know God was sorry he made man. I have a hard time picturing God up in heaven going, man, that was a mistake. I shouldn't have done this whole. Don't. That's not really what that means. Or even when he comes to the garden, he's like, hey, Adam, where are you? [00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah, he knows. [00:53:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And so there's things. Whether it's for our benefit, whether it's. [00:53:13] Speaker B: So you do think a lot of this is using certain language or using certain verbiage or saying certain things like the where are you? To almost make it easier for us to understand. You think again, just thinking out loud. [00:53:26] Speaker C: Here, I think there's some of that. I think putting it all under that blanket covering is a bit of a cop out. I think it's a little more complex than that, but I do think there's a little bit of it. Like, that is understandable for us, but he's not like us. [00:53:42] Speaker A: That's the anthropomorphical language. I thought I was dumb. Well, now I know that's just for us. Okay. I understand the concept behind it, and it probably is just for us, but it seems like a major cop out to just go, yeah, that was just for us to understand that the text. God didn't actually. It's like, that's what the text says is God did relent. So we could say that that was just for us to understand the seriousness of sin. There's a bazillion of one places in the Old Testament where we could have gotten it without. It's saying God relented from his actions. But I agree with you. The problem is we get to an inconsistency of God, and we know from James one there's no variation or shifting shadow. Like, God doesn't change. It's not like tomorrow he wakes up and goes, whoa. Hey, man. Boy, did not see that one coming. Again, the open Theists kind of do. The open theist, he doesn't know the future. So when he did, it's like, whoa. Well, that's pretty interesting. That's how they explain it. But again, the holes in open theism of, like, how would God be able to, there's so much foreshadowing in the Bible. There's so much typology in the Bible that's impossible for God not to know the future. They're so intricately put together, it's literally impossible for God not to have planned all of this out. And it does talk about that Ephesians, one of him predestining the plan, he had this laid out as to what was going to happen, what needed to happen, how it was going to come about the church being the bride of Christ. Like, all of this was laid out from the beginning of time. So if he laid it out and had this plan but was unable to see the future, to me, it would be impossible without him directing things in order to kind of bring that. [00:55:21] Speaker B: I wonder if they argue, because I don't know any open theists personally. Joe, maybe you could answer this. I wonder if they argue that God knows the quote unquote bullet points, the big points of the plan, and he chooses to know those things. But it's the little minor details of how things get there that he could know and just chooses to stay on our timeline with. [00:55:38] Speaker C: Well, and that's the term, they don't. God's decreed will and permissive will that I think I would agree with is, as you say, the things that have to happen, the Esther thing, again, my people aren't going to be exterminated. Well, whether Esther is going to be the one that I use or whoever else, but there's plan a through z of how that's going to happen. [00:55:56] Speaker A: But I would also say that God did raise up Esther specifically. [00:55:59] Speaker C: For sure. She did come there for such a time as this. But I think she had the option to chicken. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Agree. I agree. I think God would have brought it about either way. But that kind of does leave the door open. Are there plan b's? Does God have plan b's or are. [00:56:12] Speaker C: I think the Samson thing is such a good example of like, hey, this is a guy chosen from before birth, and yet, man, he still basically did everything he could to know the kind of person he was supposed to be. He just totally blew off the Nazarite thing. All the things that he was committed to, and yet God still got a lot done with. [00:56:30] Speaker A: I think, you know, blowing Israel off the map was perfectly within God's. He did it, know, did it with Sodom and Gomorrah. He did it with the world and the flood. If he had blown them off the map. Yeah. He's not a respecter of persons. I think that's within his purview. Like, he absolutely could have done it. [00:56:48] Speaker C: Once he told Abraham, but then you could say, well, he would have raised. [00:56:53] Speaker A: Exactly. That's what I was going to say. He would have said, same with lot, same with Noah. I think he could have done it and that would have been perfectly fine because he still would have been holding that family and brought it about. The problem would be, once again, would God change his mind? Like, this was the plan, and now you're ticking me off too much, man. Like you said, I have a very difficult time seeing that. I would love to know the discussions of the Godhead. I know they're all God, but kind of the discussions that they have, and we see this in. [00:57:19] Speaker C: I don't think they're up there arguing. [00:57:21] Speaker A: No, I don't think they're arguing, but just kind of like, what parts? When we grieve God or we grieve. I know we grieve. Like, I'm not saying there's three different gods. The Trinity is very difficult, but you see them let us make man in our image. So you talking about there's three of them. There are three distinct places and three distinct beings that are kind of, however it works. But could there be some of that in there where. I don't think they're arguing. I think they're in perfect unity. But at the same time, yeah, maybe that's part of it is like, God the father goes, this. It's not that this didn't work out the way he wanted to. Of course he saw that there was going to be Noah, because Noah is a figure for, like you look through. Again from a typological perspective. And from a foreshadowing perspective, Noah and foreshadowing lot and kind of the righteous man, and they literally have the same sin getting out where they're exposed and nakedness exposed and everything else. I mean, there's so many things that go throughout. It's like, whoa, that's pretty interesting the way he lines these up perfectly. There's no way that that didn't happen without God knowing. So is God sorry? Maybe. And yeah, he is. Was God surprised that that happened? No, I think he can still be sorry that that took place even though he knew that was going to happen. So open theism to me is, again, not easily because of some of these verses. It's not easily done away with, but the prophecy, the typology, things like that make it very unlikely that's the case. I just think it's wrong. I don't think it's heretical, as some people would say. They deny God's power. No, it would be God choosing what power to use and what power not to use. I think he can put himself in whatever situation. He's God. Now, what's an interesting side point? We talk about Calvinism, armenianism, open theism, and then there's kind of what we've. [00:58:56] Speaker C: Been pushing pretty much this entire time. [00:59:01] Speaker A: Zip it, zip it. We'll agree to disagree, but this is the idea of this middle knowledge, and it is God knowing all these possibilities. And so, like you said, we have been discussing this. You brought in Esther 414. So there's the things that God absolutely knows, which is. And they have three different terms for me. I should have written them down. One is like two plus two equals four. It's a known fact. It's the universe. It's the way he created it. Like, God knows that there's other things that God knows will take place if I do this, that will happen. And then there's things which is the middle knowledge of it could. It could not. Right? Like, there's thousand different timelines. I know the one timeline here, but I also know the other, 999 and what could have happened. And we see this in a different place. What is it, Jerry? I think you referenced Jeremiah 26. I think it may be there where it's like he kind of has the same concept of this is what was going to happen, but this is what happened instead. And he's got a few of those different things. Makaya, the prophet. I think we brought that up. There's some interesting things with Makaya as well. And this also goes into the free will discussion. Of them kind of going, okay, how about I'll go down as the diluting spirit and I'll make sure that their mind is kind of scrambled. You get into some of those things of. He knows multiple timelines. He knows what needs to take place. [01:00:18] Speaker C: There's one I should have pulled up. I think it's somewhere second Samuel five where David asks, well, if I do this, what's going to happen? And God's like, yeah, that's not going to work. And David's like, okay, I'm not going to go there. And so kind of, again, like, if I choose this, kind of the looking down, here's the outcome of that. So don't choose that. Make this other choice. Well, how did he know that? It's not something that David did. Well, he knows how things are going to go depending on the choices you have. And that makes it where he can craft the future that he wants, because he knows, well, if this outcome is going to lead to this, this person chooses, this is going to lead to this. And the idea of a God that can contain all of these choices for every human who's ever lived at every given instance is like, that's one of those that makes you feel really. [01:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:01:04] Speaker A: No kidding. So, as you said, we kind of discussed the middle knowledge. A lot of the points on our outline we had, we've already been discussing, because this fits so much into the pharaoh, but also, again, the Judas discussion, the Esther discussion, the John the Baptist discussion, how much does he control out of? And it comes around to our ultimate conclusion, I think. And with our time, we might as well get to this point. And we have one last question we want to ask. But we don't have ultimate free will. Coming back to your point, I just don't think we do. And you have an illustration, I think you use concerning breakfast decisions. And you've used this. And so those that have read your stuff, I'm sure, have come to it. But concerning english breakfast, I believe, yeah. [01:01:46] Speaker C: I mean, we, and what all of our listeners had for breakfast, you might have had cereal, you might had eggs, you might have yogurt, waffles, whatever. Most of you probably didn't have beans and toast. To me, that's just disgusting. It didn't even cross my mind to have that. Did I have the option to have that? Yeah, but it was not going to happen. Like, my entire life, it has never happened. Even the time I was over in England and the hotel served, I was like, beans, what do you know? And so theoretically, the options there I didn't choose it. However, millions of people did have that for breakfast this morning, because through the british empire. That's pretty standard, the english breakfast. Well, I have the same free will. They have to choose it. But I didn't and they did. [01:02:27] Speaker B: Why? [01:02:28] Speaker C: Well, because of all the influences, again, as we talked about earlier, the cascade of things that limit the range of likely. Again, there is, in theory, the opportunity to have that for breakfast. In actuality, never going to happen. [01:02:47] Speaker B: Well, and this to add to it, Jackie brought it up earlier, the point that, yes, everybody on planet Earth has free will to choose. But the ods of my son obeying the gospel is a whole lot higher than the ods of somebody who maybe lives in a country without religious freedom, whose parents don't believe in God. [01:03:07] Speaker C: Raised in a muslim family in Iran. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, both kids, my son and that son over there, they both have free will, but one is going to be heavily slanted and heavily tilted towards obeying the gospel and acknowledging God as the almighty God, and the other is going to be heavily slanted towards acknowledging Allah and not obeying the gospel. Is there free will taken away? Of course not. And so that speaks to this point of limited free will or not having absolute free will, which I think for a lot of people, might be a bit of a tough pill to swallow, because, as was brought up earlier, we want everything to be fair and equal. And while everybody has the exact same chance, that's not necessarily the case. [01:03:49] Speaker A: What would you say to those who say that's unfair, that God created a world where he knew most people are not going know it's unfair half the world's muslims, I would say it's also. [01:04:01] Speaker B: Unfair that Jesus took our sacrifice, took our sins on the cross. If we want to start griping about fair, then that's probably. Jesus probably gets to be the first one to make that gripe. Essentially, us deciding what's fair for God is the epitome of irony. We don't get to decide what's fair. It would be my answer to that. [01:04:20] Speaker C: Well, and the other thing is it just erases all works. It erases good parenting. It erases, like, every generation would have to be totally cut off from the people before them, from culture, from everything. This is just humanity. When you enter a world with free will, when the tree of knowledge of good and evil was there, this is the game we all played. Yeah, this is the game we all signed up for, is that there would be cause and effect. Again, as you're saying, cause and effect that we had no part of the american revolution. And as I said, the stone Campbell movement and religious freedom here in America and Christendom in Europe that led to that. We're going back again 2000 years and even before that, again, the cascade that led us to be blessed and have just thankfully, the parents that took us to church and all that. And what you're trying to do is get other people to convert so that help their kids and how many people come through one? [01:05:14] Speaker A: This drives evangelism. This also drives christian nationalism, in my opinion. Yes, every nation should be coming unto the Lord because that creates the favorable circumstances for people to then generation after generation come to God. [01:05:25] Speaker C: As I've said before, culture is pre evangelism. [01:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly it. So I do think free will is a lot easier to, everybody has free will, but we will. Circumstances matter. This brings us to our last question though, guys, because this is a big one. [01:05:40] Speaker C: We got to get through this. A lot of people are 88 miles an hour. I mean, let's go. [01:05:42] Speaker A: I was going to say, nice. Reverend, what's the point of prayer? Is there a purpose to prayer? If God has kind of laid things out and he needs this to happen, therefore he's going to put the circumstances in and everything else, is there a purpose to God praying or to us praying to God? Can we change his mind? Can we help him direct his will? Is there a point to prayer? [01:06:05] Speaker B: I think personally, I'll be very quick. I think James 516 tells us just point blank, yes, there is a point to prayer. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. That is in the text. So we have to agree on the fact that it does matter, that there's a point to it. Where the discussion gets interesting is, okay, what is the point? Did God know we were going to pray that and so it's already set in motion, or did we steer God in a certain direction? This is where the belief that these quote, unquote smaller things, the minor things, this and that, is more open that God hasn't necessarily decided how things are going to go and that's where the providence comes in. That's where our prayer comes in and kind of might lean things a certain direction. The big stuff is not going to change, but maybe the smaller things so and so getting over a sickness or getting a job or praying that your kid finds a good spouse to us, those are big things. In the grand scheme of things, those are pretty small. And so I do tend to think that maybe those are undecided and it is our decisions, our prayer or whatever, that might lean things a certain direction. Jack? [01:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, there's so many interventions to use the one you just said a minute ago, pray your kid finds a godly spouse. There's a lot of things you're going to do with your kids to set that up, to show them what to look for, to show them the kind of spouse they need to be, to show them preparation for marriage in so many different ways and things like that. Prayer is one of those interventions. It's a really important one, but it's just another thing you're doing towards that in the same sense of like, you don't just pray well, God bring somebody to salvation. You do that and then you work, you look for opportunities, share the gospel or whatever. And so it's just one tool in the arsenal towards building toward this. And it's telling God, I want this to happen, I'm going to work toward this to happen. Help me with that. And again, praying for a family member who's gone astray or praying for your kids to be christians, you're going to do a lot of things, and you're also going to pray that God would again press the buttons that he would intervene in this to say, hey, this is an outcome I want. This is a good outcome. He wants it, too. But he works through us, his hand and feet. And so I think it's just bringing him into it in our own lives, in our own way of helping us see these opportunities, helping us see what we need to do and change to make the things happen. And so, as somebody has said, prayer doesn't change God, it changes us, and it makes us more effective servants of his. And again, he creates the circumstances. I know there are people praying for discipline on family members that have gone astray, praying that God would make it hurt for them such a way that they would turn around and realize this is the wrong thing to do. And I think he does that. [01:08:45] Speaker A: So C. S. Lewis makes a very interesting point in the purpose of prayer, and he talks about when God lays out the foundation of everything. He knew you were going to pray, so if you go all the way back to the beginning, you didn't pray or you did pray, he knows and can base his decisions when he was laying out the map of everything, could base his decisions based off whether you prayed or not. So yes, you're praying in the present. Very much matters because it may have changed God's mind bazillion years ago when he set the foundation of things. I think that's a very interesting point. And to me that it makes it work in my mind of like God does. [01:09:13] Speaker C: I wouldn't say it would have changed God's mind long before you did it. No, not something he built around. [01:09:18] Speaker A: Correct. He built into it is what I'm saying. Like, oh, yeah, I see that Joe's going to pray. I see that there's a righteous man over here who's going to pray. I really want to reward him in this way. Or if he looks down a little bit further in the timeline and goes, no, man, that's really not going to work out for him. Okay. I'm not going to give that to him, not going to grant that at this time. I see he's praying, but I really want this to come about in his life, and I think he needs this, therefore. But the prayer does have the possibility to have God have changed his timeline or to formulate his timeline around your prayer, in my opinion. So we have to keep in mind God is working on, he knows all things. He is an eternal God. So our prayer in the present very much could have had an effect on his laying out the foundation before the world was even formed because of what he those. And so I think prayer has a. Yeah, it plays a massive role. Otherwise why would we do it? Well, it's just align our will with God. I think that's true. I think that's a big part of it, as you said, it is to change us. But I do think that there's a level of like, God saw whether we were going to pray or not, and he sees whether we should grant it. And this is how we have 10,000 people on Facebook praying for a child who has cancer and they miraculously come out of cancer, or maybe they don't. And God sees. Yeah, but by it, this is what's going to happen. And so we have to have the faith that is aligning our will with God. But I think we need to pray nonetheless, because that may be the very thing that affected. [01:10:37] Speaker C: A very interesting deep end. I hope we didn't say any major heresies, but other than the one that. [01:10:42] Speaker B: Joe, I do think this is the widest range of disagreement we've ever had on a topic. We've had a few, not many. A Halloween, the church autonomy one. So I enjoyed it. I hope all of our listeners did. There's a lot of questions that are still posed. We certainly didn't solve every single thing. As always, we want to hear your comments and feedback. If you've got another question. To bring up. Maybe we'll cover it in our extended segment. If you've got an answer retort to something that we brought up. We know we're not the only christians that have had these questions and struggle with these questions. We just did our best to try to answer them and come at it from a biblical perspective with this episode, as we try to do every week. And so, guys, unless you have anything else to add to the discussion or add to the closing comments, I think we are going to wrap right there. Hope everybody has a great week. We'll talk to those who are subscribed to focus plus on the deep end on Friday. And for everybody else, we will talk to you next Monday. Thanks so much for listening. [01:11:39] Speaker A: Our channel.