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Proof texts answered

 Dr Leighton Flowers addresses individual passages of the Bible that seem to support TULIP when taken from one perspective.

Calvinist Texts Explained

Genesis 6:5  Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.

The way in which Calvinists are applying this text is to say that this is a universal condition of all people from birth at all times.  They can't help it because God decreed because of the fall of Adam for everybody to be like this.  Is that what is being said here?   

No.  The author is saying that these people, at this time were in this condition because they have become that way, not that they were born that way.  And there are exceptions.  The passage says that Noah and his family were upright, so it can't be referring to a universal condition.  Perhaps Noah was upright because God elected him and irresistibly regenerated them.  But nowhere in the passage does it say that or even suggest that.  The verse doesn't say enough to prove Calvinism.  Additional assumptions have to be supplied externally and laid onto the text.

2.

Jeremiah 13:23.  Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard change his spots?  Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil?

Nobody is saying that we can change ourselves, or regenerate ourselves, or save ourselves.  But we can recognize our condition.  There's nothing that says that we can't receive that offer of benevolent grace to change us if it is extended by God.  If God offers us a gift of grace, we can accept it.  So again this verse doesn't go as far as the Calvinists presume.  Proof that we can't do something ourselves is not proof that we cannot turn to God to accept the help when offered.

3.

Jeremiah 17:9.  The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately wicked (sick.) Who can understand it?  - doesn't this prove total depravity?

Yes, we are sick and need a solution that can only be offered by the Great Physician.  And what solution does he offer?  The Gospel.  It is sent to dead, sick people so that they can hear it, understand it, believe it, and come to life.  the bible says, "I've written these things that you may believe, and that by believing you may have life in his name."  So what's the solution for our sickness, our deadness?  The life-giving truth.  So just to assume that we can't respond positively to that life-giving truth is an unfounded presumption that Calvinists read into verses like this.  It's not actually in the verse itself.

Matthew 11:25

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