The 5 Points that Led Me Out of Calvinism | Leighton Flowers | Soteriology 101

Time Stamps:

11:20 - POINT 1 - The Foresight View (looking through the corridors of time) was not the only scholarly alternative to the Calvinistic understanding of providence. There is also the Corporate View of Election (includes groups and individuals), also called the Election to Service view.

14:33 - POINT 2 - There's a distinction between Total Depravity (Original Sin) and Total Inability. The verses that Calvinist use to support Total Inability are really verses that support the doctrine of Judicial Hardening (not a natural condition from birth). The Jews were being hardened in order to bring the Gospel to all: Jews and Gentiles (The Jews if provoked to envy and the Gentiles who have faith will be 'grafted in'). There's also a distinction between God's choice to bring His message through certain messengers (and the means used to choose such messengers) vs. God's determining those who are responsible to believe that message.

20:46 - POINT 3 - Humbling yourself (repenting in faith) is NOT a meritorious work (the prodigal son didn't deserve the father's grace in taking him back). God has sovereignly chosen to show grace to those who have faith. Those who have faith still deserve Hell. My faith doesn't make me 'better' than those who don't have faith; the word 'make' presupposes non-libertarian freedom and so it begs the question against the libertarian.

25:27 - POINT 4 - Givers get full credit for giving gifts even if rejected by some. The condition of faith does not steal any glory from God's giving of the gift of grace. God gets all glory because God chooses to save us in the middle of the pig stye of our lives if we have faith. This absolutely excludes the legitimacy of boasting.

29:00 - POINT 5 - God's attribute of Sovereignty is not an Eternal Attribute of God that's compromised by creatures with libertarian freedom. Sovereignty is not meticulous control, it is His right to rule (have dominion) over His creation. Thus, prior to the decree, He isn't sovereign over creation until creation is created. Therefore, Sovereignty is not an 'eternal' attribute. All things will be put under Christ's feet in the future through Christ's victory through the cross. For now, God has permitted that the world to man and the dark principalities (Ps. 115, verse 16; Eph. 6, verse 12).

Dr. Leighton Flowers, Director of Apologetics for Texas Baptist and Professor of Theology for Trinity Seminary, recounts the 5 points that helped to lead him away from his Calvinistic beliefs.

Leighton was a Calvinist for over a decade and served as a minister in a Reformed Baptist Church before engaging in a 3 year study on the subject. Years after leaving Calvinism he went back to school at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary where he wrote his Doctoral dissertation on Soteriology and specifically the rise of Calvinism within the Southern Baptist Convention.
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