Cross Examination, James White vs. Rober Sungenis, Predestination Free Will?

Is God Unjust? Romans 9 Free Will?

It was interesting to hear the Catholic Perspective on Romans 9. Sungenis position seems to be it's perfectly legitimate for God to harden the heart of those who harden themselves first. Where as White appears to take the view that God can harden first, God is not obligated to work in any chronological order.

But what was especially interesting was when White asked him "Then what is Paul's objection mean then?" regarding "who can resist his will?" And Sungenis pointed out in his view the objection was raised because God can react and harden, and then the person can blame God for hardening the person further and being unable to resist his will. So there is still an objection to be made even in the Free Will view.

Question here is, is the free will position(Sungenis own position) anymore moral or legitimate than Dr White's? Personally I don't believe so.

Perhaps Sungenis didn't know that Islam teaches the same thing:

Verily, those who disbelieve, it is the same to them whether you (O Muhammad Peace be upon him) warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe. Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearings, (i.e. they are closed from accepting Allah's Guidance), and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be a great torment. And of mankind, there are some (hypocrites) who say: "We believe in Allah and the Last Day" while in fact they believe not. They (think to) deceive Allah and those who believe, while they only deceive themselves, and perceive (it) not! In their hearts is a disease (of doubt and hypocrisy) and Allah has increased their disease. A painful torment is theirs because they used to tell lies.Quran Chapter 2:6-10

Verily, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable even of a mosquito or so much more when it is bigger (or less when it is smaller) than it. And as for those who believe, they know that it is the Truth from their Lord, but as for those who disbelieve, they say: "What did Allah intend by this parable?" By it He misleads many, and many He guides thereby. And He misleads thereby ONLY THOSE WHO ARE Al-Fasiqun (the rebellious, disobedient to Allah). 2:26

It is therefore inevitable, if God hardens a persons heart, then he has increased that individual's delusion, blindness, and stubbornness, he has taken away their ability to hear and see. In fact Romans 11 says likewise:

What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened, as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.” And David says: “a stumbling block and a retribution for them. May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.” Romans 11:7-10

In fact it's highly likely that God himself (as opposed to Satan) is the referent in this verse as argued for by Sam Shamoun:

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

A plain reading and exegesis of the text would lead us to conclude this is God the Father in the immediate and neighboring context.

To add to the fire, it is known the Bible teaches there exists a Divine Council, a divine panel or court of gods who congregate together in order to execute the will of the chief God, YHVH. This happens to include Satan and his demons who are known as "Sons of God", or simply gods themselves. It is thus indisputable even if God was not directly responsible for blinding the mind of the disbelievers, God certainly gave permission to the evil agents to fulfill his will like he did in the case of Satan and Job.

Why does Sungenis have a problem with God hardening the heart in some instances but not all instances is also not made clear. If free will truly existed, we would be free to choose God until the day we die, thus putting an end to even Sungenis version of free-will.

Adam And Free Will

 

James White points out when those elect attain their own post-resurrected glorified bodies, the believers will have a type of impeccability. Believers in heaven will not be capable of sinning or having evil desires. Dr White shows a distinction between this state of existence and the state of existence endowed upon Adam. Adam was not made perfected, meaning he was not made incapable of sinning. James White puts it the best:

"The will decides based upon the desires that are presented to it by a persons nature, we can't tell what Adam's nature was outside of knowing there was no sin, but there was no perfection in him which would keep him from having an evil desire, which evidently he did which lead to his fall...Not only did God have knowledge of what Adam was going to do, but if God's knowledge of the future is based on his decree, then it was apart of God's decree"

It is interesting to note that James White remains agnostic about whether Adam had free will but then points out the will is decided based upon desires and he claims Adam clearly had evil desires.

Dr White seems to shoot himself in the foot here. Why does Dr White not conclude Adam did not have free will based upon these two facts alone.

• God's decree (as elaborated by Dr White) 
• The desires given to Adam which Adam must have followed, as the will decides based upon desires, if something has more than one desire then clearly the will, will indeed fulfill each and every desire.

The next objection to add is not made to Calvinists or Dr White since Dr White already accepts Adam was set up to fall and fail and was predetermined and decreed to sin, but to those who accept Free Will. Dr White's logic here is indisputable.

I want to add something I said elsewhere in a discussion with Mkvine:

This next was the most funniest part of it all (ME QUOTING MKVINE): "I can hardly make sense of this objection. Yeah, God gave the spirits permission to perform dark-arts (assuming there was no trickery involved). JUST LIKE HE GIVES US PERMISSION to sin or go to church or buy a car or eat a cheeseburger etc. Just because GOD GIVES US PERMISSION permission doesn't mean that he is commanding us to do it."

(MY RESPONSE TO MKVINE:) If I give my daughter a car (the ability) and then the permission (my approval) considering her nature, needs and desires (rebellious sinner and curious teenage girl/or in the case of demons: evil) to go to the party. Do you think she will go to the party?

Lets think about this. I create something, but I don't merely create something I give it all the abilities, I decide it's nature, it's desires and inclinations, I give it my consent and approval and I set it up to go to the party, will it then, go to the party Mkvine? :)

And to add further what Dr White said: "The will decides based upon the desires that are presented to it by a persons nature".

I found I am not the only person to make such objections, similar objections have been made by the the great Apologist Sam Shamoun, in his dismissal of the Muslim God, Allah:

Thus, not only does Allah mislead the ungodly, he is the one who actually makes them ungodly in the first place and sends them straying from the very beginning! In other words, Allah has already determined beforehand who will be misled and has chosen not to grant certain individuals the ability to follow the guidance, thereby turning them into rebel sinners. Allah then decides to continue to lead these individuals astray for not believing in his message!(1)...

If Allah created the movements, or lack thereof, of every single thing then doesn’t this clearly establish the fact that a creature's every single action, desire, or word, whether good or bad, was created or foreordained by Allah, otherwise s/he wouldn’t or couldn’t speak, desire, or act in a certain way? Since Zawadi himself admits that Allah actually does create the evil that he wants to occur then how does this not prove that Allah has already decided to create people for both heaven and hell, and even created the very actions that they will do which will lead them to either one of these eternal abodes? (source)

Or how about in the same article:

In light of what Islam teaches the obvious questions to ask are, how can a person believe in the message at all if Allah doesn’t will it for him/her? What choice does man really have when Allah creates even his very desires, words and actions beforehand? And how can people be condemned for their unbelief when Allah has created them for disbelief and has chosen to send them to hell before creation itself?...


First, pointing to what the Holy Bible teaches concerning Divine sovereignty, predestination, human responsibility etc. will not answer or solve the objections raised by the orthodox Muslim doctrine of predestination. This approach will demonstrate at most that both the Christian and Islamic traditions have major theological, philosophical and logical problems with their teachings concerning predestination and human choice.

Of course Shamoun tries to show how Christianity is different in some senses because God loves all people and died for all sinners. To begin with these kind of Calvinists are known as 4 pointers or Amrydians, because they don't fully accept the implications of "limited atonement". But what this implicitly shows and attests to is Shamoun would conjoin with me in attacking Islam and High Calvinism (a position Dr White holds) because in this position God neither loves all the world, nor does he die for every human just like Islam.

But it further adds more confusion. Many People have objected to the Trinity on the grounds that God is schizophrenic. While I agree this is an invalid objection in that case, here this objection may be held. If God only predestines a portion of those whom he loves to his eternal grace this only further compounds the problem. If it is true that "every being acts on it's desires presented to it by it's nature", then God is acting contradictory with his own desires by not predestining all of those whom he loves. Dr White makes further and better objections against the "soft Calvinism" position, but for now we know that Christianity does indeed have the same problems as Shamoun accuses Islam of having.

But getting back to point. It is therefore true that a will must follow it's desires, meaning Adam had no choice but to fulfill all the desire given to him by his nature created by God. In fact God could have created every human being with the attribute of impeccability, meaning humans are incapable of experiencing evil desires or sinful actions, it is therefore inescapable, every Christian Theist must concede God wanted and designed, purposed, decreed and planned the fall of Adam.

Does God give only certain people the ability to repent? Yet he calls all men everywhere to repent, Doesn't that strike you as odd?

 

Dr James White answered this brilliantly:

"God's will in the law says thou shall not kill, and yet God's decree was that Jesus should die upon the cross, we have to allow all of those texts to stand together and recognize the difference between the revealed will and that of his decree"

As usual it is Calvinism (and the great defender of Biblical Calvinism Dr White) which seem to be advocating the most scripturally and logically sound position.

Understandably many non-Calvinist Christians heavily object to Calvinism. But on what grounds? Are the grounds scriptural or logical or are they moral grounds?

If a Christian does object to such a God, yet we find this to be the Biblical God, we have several choices. We either become a predeterminist and object to the God we think exists and become part of the rebellion. Further more we could investigate into evaluating whether such a diabolical being exists at all in the first place like here on AnsweringAbraham.