November 24, 2004 (David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org; for instructions about subscribing and unsubscribing or changing addresses, see the information paragraph at the end of the article) -
The following was posted by James White to his web site on November 16, 2004:

REPLY FROM BROTHER CLOUD

James posted this at his web site to belittle me, probably hoping, as well, that it would generate some mail from people urging me to go with a debate. So far it has generated about 5 e-mails. I don’t know if that is because not many people read James’ postings or if there is some other reason.

James has been trying to get me to debate him for years, first it was the Bible Version issue and for some time now it has been Calvinism. For some reason he has become ever more frantic in this quest. Now he has stooped to belittling and daring me like a schoolyard bully, hoping to browbeat me into debating him, I suppose.

I am flattered that he considers me worthy of a debate, but I have never debated anyone on any subject and have no intention to start now. I have heard a few debates, and I don’t think they accomplish anything. It simply is not something I am interested in. (If I ever do debate someone, by the way, it will be someone that I respect as a person that will treat the facts honestly and not play “the lawyer.”)

From the very beginning, I have told James White and his friends that I do not debate and that is the bottom line.

The Lord has called me to preach and that is what I do, with my mouth and with my pen. Do I not answer my critics? I do if I feel they need to be answered. I answer them in print. I think this is both scriptural and fair, and I have no intention of changing my practice, even if James White calls me a coward three more times. Or even four.

Am I required to debate every man who challenges me? Of course not. In my case, I wouldn’t get much else done because I have written on so many topics and there are so many people who don’t agree with me! My position, that I have the right before God to accept or decline any debate challenge, might seem strange to James White, but I don’t think there is anything strange about it. I believe the man is pompous, based on his communication with me.

By the way, as for James smart-aleck remark about “KJV-Onlyism,” I have disagreed in print to Dave Hunt’s comments on Acts 13:48. That was more than two years ago. (As for Mrs. Riplinger, while I have had my disagreement with her on some points, I agree with her position on the Bible far more than I agree with James White’s heretical modern textual criticism.)

As for Dave Hunt’s approach to Acts 13:48, I commented on that back in September 25, 2002, when I first wrote my review of Hunt’s book “What Love Is This?” It is obvious that James White hasn’t even taken the time to read what I have written on this issue. He so busy demanding debates and huffing and puffing about other men being cowards that he has no time to listen. The title of my article is “Dave Hunt’s Powerful Refutation of Calvinism” and the following is the part dealing with Hunt’s treatment of Acts 13:48:

“There is very little in this powerful book with which we would disagree. The exception is Hunt’s attempt to discredit the King James Bible’s translation of Acts 13:48. In his attempt to refute Calvinism, Brother Hunt finds it necessary (on page 218) to claim that the King James Bible leaned on the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate in Acts 13:48. Acts 13:48 in the KJV reads: ‘And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.’ Hunt admits that it is translated similarly ‘in the major translations,’ so we fail to understand why he finds it necessary to isolate the King James Bible. Did all of the other major versions also lean on the Catholic Vulgate in this passage? Hunt does not tell his readers that English versions predating the King James Bible had the same translation. The Tyndale New Testament reads, ‘… and believed, even as many as were ordained unto eternal life.’ The Geneva, Cranmer, Great, and Bishops Bibles followed suit, as did the KJV. Thus, this is obviously not something that originated with the translators of the King James Bible. Are we really to believe that Tyndale got his translation of Acts 13:48 from the Latin Vulgate and that all of the illustrious English Bibles that succeeded his, including the King James, blindly followed Tyndale in Acts 13:48? There is absolutely no evidence that this is the case. The fact that the Catholic Vulgate reads similarly means nothing.

“Personally, I see no reason to believe that the King James Bible is wrong in the way it translates Acts 13:48. The Bible teaches ordination and election in other passages, and we believe everything the Bible has to say about election. The same Bible, though, teaches man’s responsibility to receive the Gospel. We see both of these truths in Acts 13. While verse 48 says ‘as many as were ordained to eternal life believed,’ verse 46 says the Jews in that same situation had put salvation ‘from you’ and had judged themselves unworthy of everlasting life. The Calvinist wants to ignore or modify verse 46 while focusing on verse 48. That is the way false teachers use the Bible. They build their doctrine on pet verses and force everything else into that preconceived mold” (David Cloud, “Dave Hunt’s Powerful Refutation of Calvinism,” Sept. 25, 2002).

James’ debate challenges have never made sense to me, and they have continually morphed into something new. In regard to Calvinism, first he proposed that he defend Calvinism and I defend Arminianism. I replied that I am not an Arminian and therefore could not understand why I should defend it. Contrary to the standard Calvinist position, a child of God is not required to be either Calvinist or Arminian. The Bible is our sole standard for faith and practice, not some man-made theology. Whether James Hunt likes it or not, I can be a Biblicist without being a Calvinist or an Arminian.

White pretends that he can answer any question along these lines. He has set himself up as “Mr. Theological Debate.” I don’t make such a claim. While I can refute James White’s Calvinism and I have studied Calvinism enough to know that I do not buy into it, not even as far as Charles Spurgeon did, I am no expert and have never claimed to be. I cannot answer all of the challenges that can be brought on this topic, but then neither can any other man.

Charles Spurgeon wisely observed:

“That God predestines, and that man is responsible, are two things that few can see. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are not. It is just the fault of our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one place that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find in another place that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is my folly that leads me to imagine that two truths can ever contradict each other. THESE TWO TRUTHS, I DO NOT BELIEVE, CAN EVER BE WELDED INTO ONE UPON ANY HUMAN ANVIL, but one they shall be in eternity: they are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the mind that shall pursue them farthest, will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring” (Charles Spurgeon, New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 4, 1858, p. 337).

He also said:

“Men who are morbidly anxious to possess a self-consistent creed,--A CREED WHICH WILL PUT TOGETHER AND FORM A SQUARE LIKE A CHINESE PUZZLE,--are very apt to narrow their souls. Those who will only believe what they can reconcile will necessarily disbelieve much of divine revelation. Those who receive by faith anything which they find in the Bible will receive two things, twenty things, ay, or twenty thousand things, though they cannot construct a theory which harmonises them all” (Spurgeon, “Faith,” Sword and Trowel, 1872).

Mr. White needs to heed this wise counsel, because he is Mr. Theological Chinese Puzzle personified; and I believe he has indeed thereby narrowed his soul.

These quotes bring me to another reason why debating Calvinism is of little profit, in my estimation. The reason is that there are all sorts of Calvinism. Charles Spurgeon was a Calvinist, but he was his own kind of Calvinist. The book Spurgeon vs. the Hyper Calvinists by Iain Murray demonstrates this plainly. During the Reformation and ever since there have always been all sorts of Calvinism. There are Supralapsarianists vs. Sublapsarianists, Strict vs. Moderates, hyper vs. non-hyper, 5-pointers, 4-pointers, 3-pointers, Old School and New School. The debates among Calvinists have been just as fierce as those between Calvinists and non-Calvinists. Will the real Calvinist please stand up. James White can pretend to be The Great Calvinist Debater, but he only represents his own type of Calvinism.

Spurgeon was disliked and considered a traitor to the Calvinist cause by many Calvinists of his day. This is because Spurgeon preached for a decision, believed that God truly loves all men and that the offer of salvation is genuinely for all men, and because he refused to force Scriptures such as 1 Timothy 2:3-4 into the Calvinist mold. He said:

“What then? Shall we try to put another meaning into the text than that which it fairly bears? I trow not. You must, most of you, be acquainted with the general method in which our older Calvinistic friends deal with this text. ‘All men,’ say they, -- ‘that is, some men’: as if the Holy Ghost could not have said ‘some men’ if he had meant some men. ‘All men,’ say they; ‘that is, some of all sorts of men’: as if the Lord could not have said ‘All sorts of men’ if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written ‘all men,’ and unquestionably he means all men. I was reading just now the exposition of a very able doctor who explains the text so as to explain it away; he applies grammatical gunpowder to it, and explodes it by way of expounding it. … My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God” (quoted from Spurgeon vs. the Hyper-Calvinists by Iain Murray).

I am neither Calvinist nor Arminian. I have never found a theological system that is capable of fitting all of the Bible’s statements together into a nice package. I believe every passage that the Calvinist can quote, because I believe every word of the Bible; and I cannot exactly explain how divine election and free will fit together; I refuse to force any Scripture into a mold. John 6:37 means exactly what it says and so does John 6:40. Acts 13:48 means what it says and so does Acts 13:46. John 6:44 means what it says and so does John 12:32. How can they be reconciled? I have my ideas about that and I have answers that satisfy me, but I don’t claim to have the final word on this and I don’t believe any man does.

The fact is that James White has been debated on this subject by Dave Hunt. The debate was published in the book Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2004). James complained to me that the book format didn’t allow him sufficient opportunity to give a proper reply to Hunt’s points and that what he really wanted and required of Hunt was a talking debate. I don’t know a lot about debates, but from my perspective a written debate is much more likely to get to the truth and much less likely to be manipulated by strong and clever personalities. But that is James White’s problem, not mine. He should have taken the time to have replied properly in the book Debating Calvinism, or he could post his full and complete and exhaustive and final replies at his web site for those who might care to read them.

Another book that has answered Calvinism in our day is The Other Side of Calvinism by Laurence Vance (Vance Publications: Pensacola, Florida). Some men have told me that it is an excellent work. In fact, I have met former Calvinists who have told me that Vance’s book was a turning point for them. I have read The Other Side of Calvinism and there is no doubt that Mr. Vance has some excellent points; but I have not studied his work carefully enough to give a personal and overall recommendation.

White has been answered on John 6:37; Romans 9:15-16; and all his other pet passages. Pretending that no one understands those passages but the Calvinist is pure nonsense, and White knows that -- unless the man actually believes his own propagandizing.

Further, the subject has been debated for 500 years by men more adept that James White, Dave Hunt, Laurence Vance, or certainly than David Cloud, and not one of us has anything new to add. The historical debates are available for those who want to look into the matter.

I will continue to warn about (what I consider to be) James White’s unscriptural and dangerous position on the Bible Text issue and (what I consider to be) his “Chinese Puzzle” position on election. Likewise, if James thinks there is something in my published works that needs to be set straight, he is welcome to publish an article or book on that.

That is the only debate we will have.

For salvation by grace alone through Christ alone and 100% of God,
Brother Cloud