Will Duffy Cross-Examines Matt Slick Pt. 5

After briefly discussing the "bitcoin bubble" and Judge Roy Moore's election loss, Bob airs part of Matt Slick's opening statement as a lead in to the continuation of Will Duffy's cross-examining of the popular Calvinist theology from their December 1, 2017 Open Theism debate. Duffy is the founder of opentheism.org (the official home of the debate) and Slick is the founder of carm.org, the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.

* Actions Cannot Be Figures of Speech: Matt Slick in his opening statement misunderstood this point, thinking that Will Duffy and Bob Enyart claim that a figure of speech cannot include an action verb. That has nothing to do with this observation. Here it is, explained in detail, from opentheism.org/verses#regret

13 - God Shows Regret (similar to "repent"; uses the same Hebrew word, nacham)
I greatly regret making Saul king 1 Sam. 15:11 therefore God deposed Saul from the throne and gave the dynasty to David. For "Samuel said to Saul, 'You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the LORD…  For… the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue…'" 1 Sam. 13:13-14. (An "action" cannot be a figure of speech. Why not? Because an action is not only speech; it is an action. God "repenting" that He made Saul King 1 Sam. 15:1135 could theoretically be a figure of speech (but if so, then as a figure, it would have to convey some actual meaning). However "to repent" does not refer only to words or thoughts, but it can also refer to an action (to turn from). When any word, including the word "repent", refers to an action, then it cannot be a figure "of speech", because it is an action. When God removed Saul from the throne, and then actually gave the dynasty to David, that deposing of Saul was an action that God performed. (This powerfully illustrates a reason why God inspired His Word as a historical narrative rather than merely as a series of abstractions, so that we would constrain our interpretations based on the biblical accounts.) The Lord repented that He had made man on the earth and was grieved Gen. 6:6-7 so He destroyed the earth's population, which is not speech but an action (except for Noah's family Mat. 24:37-381 Peter 3:20)

* Quotes from Calvinist John Piper: Piper wrote an article about one of his own articles. The second is titled, Will we be finally ‘saved’ by faith alone? to which Piper answers, "No." To get to that false conclusion Piper rejects using the terms justified and saved as synonyms, and he unwittingly conflates the Christian's life in heaven with our life here. For in heaven we are delivered from our flesh whereas here we are not. By these tactics Piper twists the Scriptures to arrive at his legalist goal, that you cannot be saved by faith alone. He begins his second article (actually, a transcript) like this:

"[In] an article titled 'Does God Really Save Us by Faith Alone?' ... you answered no — we are not saved by faith alone" and urging Christians to not use "the term justification interchangeably with salvation" and that "Justification... unites us to Christ by faith alone" but while "works play no role whatsoever in justification" John Piper then contradicts himself by immediating adding that "works... are the necessary fruit of justifying faith..."

Confusing what happens in this life as compared to what happens in "the day of redemption", John Piper writes, "we are not justified through sanctification. But we are finally saved through sanctification..." And because Piper doesn't rightly divide between law and grace (i.e., between Israel and the Body, and between Paul and James), in confusion he adds, "faith without works is not the kind of faith that justifies anybody... these works are necessary." And of course, by reject Christ's teaching through Paul that we must "rightly divide the word of truth", Piper arrives at a dispensationally erroneous conclusion that contradicts the Gospel of Grace that God gave to Paul for us, which says:

"to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Romans 4:5

See Piper make the same legalistic case in his foward to another book.