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- [00:00]
Greg Koukl
Foreign.
- [00:12]
Amy Hall
You're listening to the STRS podcast from Stand to Reason. Welcome to you. And welcome to you, Greg.
- [00:20]
Greg Koukl
Thank you, Amos.
- [00:21]
Amy Hall
And I'm Amy. And we're going to go to a question from David. I've heard Greg say that Allah is capricious. How is God's divine prerogative shown in Romans 9 different from the capriciousness of Allah? Thank you so much for all that you do. Grace and peace to you both.
- [00:37]
Greg Koukl
I don't know that I've actually ever said that. I mean, maybe I have because I've heard that this was the case. And the difference is that keep in mind, caprice is a sudden shift from one thing to another. Okay, so you have a person who's capricious, you never know what they're going to do next. It isn't like there's a pattern or there's a set of principles they're following. And if you learn the principles, then you'll see, oh, this is why he does what he does. And then they become a little bit predictable. In a good sense. A person who's capricious, you never know what's going to happen next. Now, this is my understanding of Allah, but this isn't my field. So Alan Schlieman would be better to speak in depth on this. But my understanding is that Allah is capricious in that he does what he wants when he wants it. And you don't know what that's going to be because he may forgive, he may not. You don't have the standards for that. Now when it comes to the God of the Bible through Yahweh, you have an entirely different circumstance. Yes, Romans 9 talks about how God has the liberty to exercise and give mercy where he wants to give mercy or to withhold it. But we have a very clear idea of the criterion by which God shows mercy, and that's the person of Christ. And God can save whoever he wants to save and he can condemn anybody who's worthy of condemnation. So in a certain sense, he's following a set of rules, but they're not external rules guided by his own character. And he's characterized that for us. So we know what we can expect. As I put it before in the story of reality, and I got this from a brother who's a wonderful stand to reason guy, either perfect justice or perfect mercy. And we know the criterion there, and the hinge pin is faith in Christ. Without trusting in Christ and benefiting from what Jesus did, we get perfect justice, punishment for everything we've ever done wrong. And God misses nothing. And benefiting from the work of Christ because we put our trust in him, that which is his becomes ours. And then we have perfect mercy, which is forgiveness for everything we've ever done wrong. And God misses nothing. That's not caprice. God can do whatever he wants with that which is his. And Jesus made this clear in a parable when he talked about the landowner who sent workers out at different times of the day, but then paid them all the same, even though they didn't work the same. And the person who worked the longest, who had agreed to a certain wage for that day, was really bugged. And the landowner says in Jesus parable, well, I paid you what we agreed on. Why are you angry? Because I'm gracious to the others? You have nothing to say about that. Can't I do what I want with what is my own? That's not caprice. That's a proper exercise of, as the landlord said, of doing what he wants with what is his own. And this is what we see somewhat in Romans 9. It is very different, as I understand it. There's no sense of security and salvation for Muslims. There's no sense that if they do all these things, maybe the only thing is, if you die a martyr for Islam like terrorists do, maybe that's what secures for certain heaven and eternal bliss or whatever. But other than that, no, there isn't that. God is capricious. He might save you, he might not. Even though you've done everything right, still, it's up to him at any given moment. That's not like the God of the Bible.
- [04:49]
Amy Hall
Yeah, this is where I went with it too, Greg, because my understanding from Alan, and again, Alan Schliemann is the one to go to on this. If you want to see his Ambassador's Guide to Islam, we have that in our store. You can get a basic understanding of Islam. But what Alan pointed out to me is that Olive forgives randomly. And so that's part of it. And the other part is, as you mentioned, he has no way to ground justice. So our God grounds his grace in justice. Christ paid for the sins, so God did not. He did not lower his standards of justice. He didn't ignore justice, he fulfilled fulfilled justice. And he offers grace because the justice has been fulfilled. So the grace is grounded in justice and the forgiveness is grounded in justice. Whereas Allah has no way to ground that because no one has paid for it. So therefore he is forgiving randomly because there's no way to ground the justice. So Alan also pointed me to this. This. It's Hadith 3321, I think it says Allah's messenger said a prostitute was forgiven by Allah because passing by a panting dog near a well and seeing that the dog was about to die of thirst, she took off her shoe and tying it with her head cover, she drew out some water for it. So Allah forgave her because of that. I mean, that's not grounding it, that's just saying, well, I like that. And so I'm going to forgive her. So in this way. And as you explained so well, Greg, all of that grace is just capricious. There's no way to ground it. But with God, he forgives by grace grounded in justice. And grace itself is not based on justice. So you can't even. I don't even think capriciousness applies to that category because it's not a category of justice. And I would also say it's. I wouldn't call it on God's whim. I would say it's according to his purpose. So he's doing it purposely. And I.
- [07:00]
Greg Koukl
You're talking about Yahweh, God's grace.
- [07:02]
Amy Hall
Yes. So if he. You know, this whole question is about Romans 9, and this is what it says about Jacob and Esau. Even though they had both been. They were twins, everything about them was the same. Same parents born, you know, in the womb at the same time. And it says, for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to his choice would stand not because of works, but because of him who calls. It was said to her, the older will serve the younger. So it's not just that God is randomly choosing things. This all has to do with his purpose. And again, grace is not based on justice. So it's based on. It's not in that category. It's based on God's purpose. For whatever God is working through all of history, this plays a part in that purpose. So I don't think any of that falls under the category of being capricious.
- [08:01]
Greg Koukl
I agree.
- [08:02]
Amy Hall
So let's go to the next question that sort of follows from that. This one is from Timothy. I've heard the question, if God already knows who goes to heaven and God draws those whom he draws, then why bother with evangelism, since it isn't like someone can have the choice to choose God? I think they are referring to Romans 9 when they say this.
- [08:22]
Greg Koukl
Okay, in some ways this is an easy one to answer. And I actually had a reality. A dad brought his like 13 or 14 year old daughter to me and kind of raised the same question. And so I asked her a series of questions to help help her understand at least one aspect of this. I said, do you think that God purposed from all time to have Jesus die on the cross for our sins? She thought for a moment. She wondered, is this a trap? But she gave the right answer. No, God has purposed it for all time. So in other words, there's no way that Jesus could die before he died on the cross in terms of God's sovereign purpose? Yeah, that's right. Now, when Jesus was an infant, though an angel or in a dream, God told Joseph to take Jesus to Egypt, right? Why? Well, because Herod was after him and the soldiers were going to come and kill the infants. But why would he have to take them to Egypt if God had already determined that Jesus was going to die 33 years later? Now, she didn't have an answer for that. And this is the point. I wasn't trying to stump her. I was trying to help her to see that even though God has divine purposes, there are steps that lead to the fulfillment of those purposes. They don't happen in a vacuum. Now, the classic way of putting it, and I almost hesitate to put it this way because a lot of people have heard it before and they're dismissive of it, but they don't realize the significance of it. God ordains not just the ends, but the means to the ends as well. And so all of these actions were important in a certain sense. You could say, well, Jesus couldn't have died as an infant. Joseph could have said, well, I understand. I read Psalm 22 and I read the Messianic Psalms. I know that this little boy is going to die in 33 years. Why am I going to leave? Go ahead, Herod, take your best shot. Fill him with arrows. Chop his head off. You can't thwart God's purposes. But that isn't what happened. And by the way, this isn't a stray example, a singular kind of example. The Bible is thick with these examples. Will you give this army into our hands? Yes, I will. I will secure the battle for you. Okay, now what? Set an ambush. What do you mean set an ambush?
- [10:53]
Amy Hall
Set an.
- [10:53]
Greg Koukl
We're not even going out there. You're going to win it, right? You're going to take care of it. Why do we have to set an ambush? There are a number of cases, even in Jesus own life where he hid himself because he knew the people were seeking to kill him. This is during his earthly ministry. So he's close to his crucifixion, but it isn't time yet. There are threats on his life, so he alters his behavior. And I've actually kept a. A file of all of these cases because this question comes up fairly often. And I'm just wondering. Oh, I can't even read my writing now. But there are lots of examples in scripture where you see this happening, where even though there's an end that is divinely ordained, there are necessary steps to that end, and people are. Are enjoined to pursue those steps for the purpose of the end. Well, that's weird. Yeah, it is. It's mysterious. But God's sovereignty and the way he works in the world is always mysterious. You can only go so far. The support that there is for what I'm offering is the text, which is why I brought that one example up to the girl. There are lots of examples where God's divine purpose is established and we know what it is. Yet there are steps to accomplish that purpose that people need to participate in, just like Joseph taking Jesus to Egypt. And those steps are meaningful and direct application of that principle is evangelism. It's not just that God. Well, you say God knows. I guess the question is about God's knowledge, at least the way it was originally.
- [12:43]
Amy Hall
Well, also. And he draws those whom he draws.
- [12:45]
Greg Koukl
Yes, that's right. So if he knows and draws, then what's the point? Because how is it that God's drawing. It's through the mechanism of evangelism and the communication of the gospel that he does that. And this is sometimes a stumbling block for people who are thinking about sovereign grace. And they think, well, what's the point of evangelism? I think JI Packer, or who was it? Evangelism, the sovereignty of God. That book. Maybe it wasn't Packer.
- [13:18]
Amy Hall
I think that is. I think it's Packer.
- [13:20]
Greg Koukl
Well, he goes into detail there. But the examples I give should be enough to show that there is no inconsistency here, because there are so many other examples in scripture of things just like this.
- [13:33]
Amy Hall
It's not a kind of fatalism where God says, I'm going to make this happen. And so then no matter what you do, I'm going to make this happen. It's that I'm going to make this happen through what you do. God is not some. This is hard for us to understand because we cannot do this as human beings. I can't make you do everything I want you to do without overriding you personally as a human being. But God has a way of doing that. And the illustration I always give is the inspiration of the Bible. They were not puppets. They were not writing. God wasn't moving their hands. They weren't hearing a voice and then writing it down. God wasn't turning them into puppets. You can actually see their choices, their. Their humanity, their what they cared about, their personalities. You can tell the difference between Peter and Paul. You can see all these things in their writing. And yet God is writing exactly the words that he wants to. He's speaking. The Holy Spirit is speaking through the mouth of David, as the scripture says.
- [14:38]
Greg Koukl
Sure, it's interesting the way Paul puts it, God breathed Theo Neustos. So there's this breath of God moving through these words. And it's mysterious theologians call a concursive operation. There's two things blending together so that the final product is equally the product of the author and of God. And since it's of God, then it's inerrant.
- [15:01]
Amy Hall
So God works through our choices. He doesn't work without our choices. That's not the kind of God he is. And this is where people get very confused because they have a very strange understanding of Providence that is just not what any reformed person would hold.
- [15:20]
Greg Koukl
Right.
- [15:22]
Amy Hall
Next, I would say part of this question is why bother with evangelism? Since it isn't like someone can have the choice to choose God. But this is. Again, I think you're missing something. They do have the choice to choose God. They just will always choose not to choose God because their hearts aren't rebelling against Him. They will always go against Him. It's kind of like if someone offered me, here, do you want this plate of peas or do you want this plate of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies? I guarantee you I will always choose the Girl Scout cookies unless you change me into a person. You remove my wrong hatred for peas so that I love the peas. Now, this is.
- [16:09]
Greg Koukl
And then you would freely choose peas.
- [16:11]
Amy Hall
And then I would freely choose the peas. Now, this isn't the greatest explanation. Cause peas aren't as good as God. But our problem, the reason why we don't choose God, is because we are broken. And when God heals that brokenness, we see God as He is and we love him naturally, because he is lovable. It's not that He. Suddenly people will say forced love and all that. That's not what it is.
- [16:32]
Greg Koukl
No, it's a total mischaracterization. Unfortunately, WGT Shedd I have his Dogmatics. And by the way, it's a great book. He's like, he's 150 years old. But Alan Gomes has done a great edition of it all. So all the Greek and the Hebrew is Anglicized and whatever the Latin is squared away, so you have access to it. But what he talks about is an inclination of the soul. The soul is inclined by the fall away from God. And so our actions that we freely choose those our actions are consistent with our natures that are inclined against God and God. If God acts to incline the soul towards him, however he does that, and there's discussion about it, then our genuine choices are going to be different. It's kind of like I was thinking about this this morning when somebody gets, you know, a man wants to. He's wooing a girl and she doesn't like him at first, but eventually she changes her mind. And then when he proposes, she accepts. Well, that's a free acceptance. It's a meaningful acceptance, but it's an acceptance that is consistent with her changed attitude. And the changed attitude was a result of how he wooed her in a certain way and she saw him in a certain way and that changed her heart and that then informed her decisions. And the, I guess the disanalogus element here is that a person could still say, oh, even though I love this guy and I think he's wonderful, I can still just say I'm not going to marry him. And I can exercise this free act of my will and say no where. Although that's going to be unlikely, I think, in the scenario I just described. Even so, with God you can't do that because the wooing is so effectual that we respond with our choice for the God we now are learning to love.
- [18:24]
Amy Hall
But again, remember, that is the natural choice for someone who is not fallen. Anyone who was not fallen would see God as he is and choose to be with Him. That's just a fact. But the people who are fallen, the fact that they don't choose him doesn't mean they don't have a choice. It means they don't want to choose him.
- [18:45]
Greg Koukl
They don't want to. Yeah. Jesus says in John 3, he said, the light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil. We all love darkness in our native state, fallen state. It isn't until God does something. And by the way, on either side of the fence here, Arminian or Reformed, everybody agrees that God's got to do something. The question is how much he does and how effectual it is. But God has got to do something in fallen human beings in order to bring them to a point where the gospel is even considered by them.
- [19:25]
Amy Hall
And I'm sure I don't want to get into this too much, but this goes back to our first question about, again, this is not a matter of justice. God doesn't owe grace to everyone. He's a just God. And justice also. He'd be just in sending everyone to hell. So it's not a matter of. It's not fair. Well, fairness would be everyone going to hell. This is grace, which is above and beyond justice and not deserved by anyone. And we get that confused. Think, well, if God's only saving some or he's only drawing some, then that's not fair. But the truth is, grace is above and beyond. It's not in the category of justice at all.
- [20:04]
Greg Koukl
Well, fairness is not a quality of God. And this is. People get confused.
- [20:10]
Amy Hall
Well, I'm using it in the terms of justice, not in the terms of equality. I'm using it.
- [20:14]
Greg Koukl
Isn't that the way you're using it?
- [20:16]
Amy Hall
I'm using it fair. When I say fair, I'm talking about. It's just. I'm just using those as sentences.
- [20:23]
Greg Koukl
All right? A lot of people think, well, fairness means everybody gets the same shot. And that just isn't part of God's makeup. Back to my earlier comment Jesus parable and Romans 9. God can do what he wants with what is his, and that's appropriate for God to do so. And everybody doesn't get the same shake. And that's, some get justice, some get mercy. That's up to God.
- [20:51]
Amy Hall
And then I would also say, since the question is, why bother with evangelism? God saves through the gospel for a reason. There is a greater purpose that's happening through all of this. Salvation. Our salvation ultimately is not about us. It's about what God is doing in his whole story, where he's bringing glory to himself. And by that I mean he's enabling us to see him as he is and enjoy him and bring him glory in that way.
- [21:20]
Greg Koukl
And.
- [21:20]
Amy Hall
And that means he does it through the gospel. He doesn't just. We don't just go through our lives and he says, okay, I'll save you, you, you. And then at the end, some go to heaven, some go to hell. That's not accomplishing what he's accomplishing. He's creating a masterpiece. He's an artist and he's creating a story. And in this story, we come to know God and we see his grace and we see his glory. And his highest glory is his grace on the cross. So that is. It's through knowledge of this that he saves, because his purpose is so that we will know Him. And then in eternity, he will be able to show the riches of his kindness forever through the grace shown to us through Jesus. And that's what it says in Ephesians. So that's why the gospel is part of this. It's not just some random, here are the words you have to say, here's the things you have to believe, and this is just randomly chosen. And then you can be saved. This is the whole purpose. The gospel is a revelation of God himself and his praise.
- [22:21]
Greg Koukl
It displays the goodness of God, right?
- [22:23]
Amy Hall
So he's not gonna save people through some other religion, because then that false God would get the glory. And that's completely outside of his entire purpose. So you have to kind of look at this in the whole system that's going on here. And I'm gonna throw one more question in here because it does follow from this. It's pretty similar to this one, but a little bit different. This One comes from Mr. Speedy. What's the role of faith in the elect in Reformed theology, if God guaranteed their salvation, do they need faith at all?
- [22:53]
Greg Koukl
Of course they do. I mean, sometimes I don't understand these questions. And it's not so much like in these questions. We're campaigning for a view. We're just trying to be clear. We want people to understand clarity. People can decide for themselves. But I don't understand how, if God is the decisive factor, that the qualifiers are not, that the things that are the necessary elements for salvation aren't in place anymore. All through Scripture, there is this requirement of exercising faith and trust in God. Now in the New Testament, it's used different language. Believe, receive trust. These are all different kind of characterizations. But it all comes down to some active thing that we do to apprehend the grace of God. We are involved in it. The ultimate question between these two options is who is the ultimate cause of this choice that we are making? And one says humans are. Ultimately, when all the dust settles, it is me and me alone that makes sense, that secures my salvation through faith. And the other side says, no, it is God and God alone that is the decisive factor, securing the salvation that I still secure individually by an act of faith. I don't know why that's challenging for people to see that. Now, the real question is what does the text teach? That's the. The question that's most important. And I'm just going to join people to go back to the text and read John 6 or John 10. There's lots of passages, but Romans 9 and a whole bunch of other ones. That's our starting point. And we then answer these other questions in light of what the text teaches, if we're able to. We're not always able to do that. But on any issue on, let's just drift away or set this aside. On any theological issue, the ultimate concern is what does the text teach? And then if there are external conceptual problems that result from that, we do our best to solve them in light of what the text seems to be teaching on our reading. But we can't say, well, I can't answer this question, therefore I'm not going to accept this idea of the text. The meaning of the text stands or falls on its own.
- [25:37]
Amy Hall
And sometimes we can see that something is so, even though we can't understand how it could be so.
- [25:42]
Greg Koukl
Right, right. Like what we were talking about a moment ago with the inspiration of the Scripture.
- [25:46]
Amy Hall
Right. And so I think with this question, I think we've already discussed this. I think it goes back to this misunderstanding that Reformed theology is fatalistic in some way where God is just making things happen apart from our choices, rather than working through who we are and the choices that we're making. And I think that's probably where this kind of question comes from, because we do get this question quite a bit. We obviously, we explained why God does it through faith, why God does it through grace. He does it through grace because we could never do it on our own. He does it by his choice because we would never choose him on our own. And he does it through our faith because. Because he's glorifying himself and especially his grace through Jesus on the cross. And it's not capricious because it's grounded in justice that Jesus paid for on the cross. And I would also say, if anyone wants to go into this topic a lot more deeply. John Piper wrote a very long book, but it's so exhaustive. It's called Providence. So it goes into all the different aspects of God's providence, but he goes through all the texts that adjust. This is that address it. And it's very. It's a long book, but it's worth your time if you're interested in at least understanding what the people you disagree with think.
- [27:11]
Greg Koukl
Right.
- [27:12]
Amy Hall
Because I think we would. It would help everyone if we just understood the other side and didn't misunderstand. Didn't misunderstand or didn't. I was going to say, I mean, I don't think everyone misrepresents, but it just, it feels the better you understand, the less likely you are to misrepresent. And especially with a topic like this that is so emotionally charged and the debate can get very emotionally charged. It just helps if you actually understand what the other side is saying. All right, that's it, Greg, for this topic. Thank you, David and Timothy and Mr. Speedy. And if you would like to send us your question, all you have to do is go to X and I'll just use the hashtag Strask. Or you can go to our website and if you look for our podcast page, you find strask and you'll find a link there and you can just submit your question. Just keep it to a couple sentences. And you know, sometimes I let one through or a couple through that are longer. But it's just helpful because then we don't end up spending the whole time on one person's question. You can see send in as many questions as you like and we are always open to hearing from you. So thank you so much for listening. This is Amy hall and Greg Kochl for Stand to Reason.