Are those Who Respond to the Gospel Better?: An Interaction with Leighton Flowers

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

When Calvinists and Traditionalists debate the merits of their theological commitments, it is not infrequent for Calvinists to charge Traditionalists with believing that some among the human race must be in some way better (more smart, humble, righteous, etc.) to the extent that they are able to make a libertarianly free choice for Christ while others neglect to do so. In response to this charge, Leighton Flowers in The Potter’s Promise offers several defenses which will be examined at present.

First, Flowers accuses the Calvinist with the fallacy of question begging.[i] This fallacy happens when an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion. Unfortunately, Flowers misleads his readers by a different, if not deceptive definition. Specifically, he argues that this “fallacy presumes the very point up for debate.”[ii] In his mind, the Calvinist who makes logical conclusions based on the assumption that the Traditionalists are correct are by default fallacious in their undertaking. This, however, is not so. The Calvinists perceive that those who make, based on the Traditionalists’ position, a libertarian free choice for Christ are somehow set apart from the rest of humanity and made heirs to salvation as a result in part of their having made such a choice. In response, the Calvinist should expect the Traditionalist to explain how indeed one person can make a positive choice for Christ while another does not. For this reason, they will pose the very questions offered (on their behalf) by Flowers: “Why did you believe the gospel, but your friend did not? Are you wiser or smarter or more spiritual or better trained or more humble?”[iii]

In his defense, Flowers would question his detractor’s understanding of question begging and then point back to the aforementioned questions as proof. Even so, the learned Calvinist could say that Flowers has essentially ‘set his own table’ or ‘established his own straw man.’ In a retort, this Calvinist needs only to restate the questions so as to undue Flowers’ first defense. Basically, he could ask, “Given that, as Traditionalists argue, humans possess a libertarian free will whereby they can make a free will choice to accept or reject Christ in response to the gospel, how is that some respond positively while others do not? Is there something special about those who respond affirmatively? If so, does this make them better. If not, why not?”

Flowers second line of defense against those who believe that libertarians believe responders to the gospel are somehow better is his argument that “Calvinists ultimately appeal to the same mystery.”[iv] The mystery he is alluding to is the Calvinistic belief that people act in conjunction with their nature, not unlike God. In other words, God cannot do evil because He is perfectly holy and righteous. In a similar way, a fallen sinner is unable to perform any act of righteousness, including a right response of faith in regard to the gospel, since his/her nature is evil. In response to these Calvinistic tenets, Flowers poses a noteworthy question about how this worked in Adam’s case before the fall into sin.

In the garden of Eden and before the fall of humanity, Adam and Eve were by nature good (Gen 1:31). While any final and conclusive answer to how God’s perfectly good creature could have chosen evil exceeds the bounds of God’s revelation in Scripture not to mention the human intellect, some points can be made by the Calvinist in response to Flowers. To begin with, Flowers himself admits that this is a mystery, and therefore, he should hardly expect the Calvinists to resolve it conclusively as that lies beyond human capability and available knowledge. As he states, “The Calvinist reject the mystery of libertarianism.”[v] On top of this, while it is true that Adam had a good nature and somehow violated his goodness by making a sinful choice, this does not affirm the libertarian position in full. While it is true that Adam went from being good to fallen by virtue of his choice to sin, there is no record of anyone making a choice to do good (as God would see it) while being by nature a fallen person. The Traditionalist may object to this, but Calvinists would contend that anyone who makes a good choice (which must arise from a good heart or inner person) is doing so by the power of God working within them (i.e., His grace).

Along with Adam’s sinful choice being a mystery and the lack of any authenticated example of a fallen person making a good choice by his/her own power and apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, Calvinists could also point out that Adam’s will to choose was at least limited by God Himself and therefore lacked the freedom suggested by Traditionalists. In Genesis, God chose to put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, and He chose that tree from among the others to be the one to test Adam with. God also chose to allow Satan entrance into the Garden knowing that the Devil would certainly do his evil deed. At the very least, Adam’s will and freedom to choose was somehow constrained by God.

Instead of discussing these knowable facts about Adam and his fall, Flowers prefers to simply focus on the inability of Calvinists to explain this dilemma. Instead, he performs what he previously and wrongly labelled as question begging by asking the following loaded question and offering the supposed Calvinistic response: “Why has your lost friend continued to hate and reject God? Most Calvinists do not want to admit that the reprobate of their system ultimately hates and rejects God because God first hated and rejected them.”[vi]

In response, Flowers, who claims to be a former Calvinist, should be embarrassed by his lack of knowledge of how Calvinists (or his attempt to skew their position) would respond to such a question. It is true, as Flowers says, that Calvinists believe fallen sinners are in a state of active rebellion against God and therefore hate and reject Him. This, however, does not mean that God hated and rejected them first because most Calvinists affirm the federal headship of Adam (based in part on Romans 5:12). They see Adam as the representative of all humanity before God. In this way, Adam’s sin, its effects, and guilt, are inherited by all people such that all are born reprobates. With this understanding, the Calvinists suggest that all people in Adam first rejected God.

After assaulting the Calvinistic assertion that Traditionalists believe faithful responders to the gospel are somehow better with accusations of question begging and appeals based on the mysterious nature of the human predicament, Flowers attempts to equate the Traditionalist view with the Calvininistic view by saying that both essentially lead to the same end. As he puts it, “Better by choice of divine decree is still better.”[vii] Before even considering his argument here, it should be noted that he is now affirming the very thing that Calvinists presumed from the start. While he attempts to rephrase their concerns so as to charge them with question begging, he ultimately admits to the charge by responding affirmatively to question that was restated earlier in paragraph 3.

According to Flowers, the Calvinist thinks that believers “chose to believe in Christ because God made [them] morally better people than the rest.”[viii] His phraseology seems to be deliberately written in such a way as to besmudge his opposition’s stance. That being said, the Calvinist would say that though they by nature were not able to respond freely to the gospel, God in His grace graciously called and enabled them to respond. It is not that believers are better, but rather, the Calvinist argues, God has made them ready to respond and thereby God gets all of the glory.

In conclusion, the Calvinist has every right to ask responsible and biblically astute questions in regard to the views of Traditionalists. These concerns may be in regard to the theological and biblical underpinnings of their views, or they may be in regard to logical inferences and implications which arise from them. Likewise, the Traditionalist has every right to do the same. Neither, however, should engage in this discussion following the example of Flowers where he engages in distorting the opposing view to establish the merits of his own.

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[i]Leighton Flowers, The Potter’s Promise: A Biblical Defense of Traditional Soteriology (Coppell, TX: Trinity, 2017), 155.

[ii]Ibid.

[iii]Ibid.

[iv]Ibid., 156.

[v]Ibid., 158.

[vi]Ibid.

[vii]Ibid., 159.

[viii]Ibid.