A question about John MacArthur...

Link:I don't see what your beef is with him over this. Wouldn't any Calvinist say that something goes on in the heart of someone who is regenerated? God doesn't just take people who never believe in their lives and accept them into eternal life because they are the elect does He? The elect believe and bear fruit.

Does MacArthur say that the reason one repents is because He chooses to and that God has not repaired his heart to repent?


HP: I have no beef with the man, I simply take exception to the doctrines he preaches. I do not believe they are in accordance to the Word of God, reason, or experience.

The question is not whether or not ‘something goes on in the heart of someone who is regenerated,’ the question is who or what is the ‘cause’ of it. If one insists as John MacArthur Jr. does that “saving faith, repentance, commitment, and obedience are all divine works, wrought by the Holy Spirit in the heart of everyone that is saved” then God is the sole cause and man simply a pawn at His disposal. Such nonsense makes morality out to be non-existent, and God some kind of a cosmic tyrant that must take pleasure in His actions. One of those actions must be, if Calvinism and John MacArthur Jr. are correct, is God’s predestination of the wicked to damnation, with the damned never having the slightest possibility afforded them to be any thing other than the damned they are. That is simply an inescapable logical conclusion from such reasoning. There could be no greater blight to paint upon our Holy, Loving, Just God than the blight such a maelstrom of confusion as he paints in his preface to his book that logic forces one to conclude.

How can one choose to do anything meaningful in light of salvation or the Christian walk, if man, again according to John MacArthur Jr, is ‘all of grace and grace alone’ and ‘nothing a degenerate, spiritually dead sinner can do will in any way contribute to salvation.?” It is all of God and God alone according to John MacArthur. If one does not or cannot repent, God is to blame, for again it is all of God and has nothing to do with man again according to JMJ. Predestination of the damned is again unavoidable.

Calvin himself understood the inescapable notion of the predestination of the damned was consistent in accepting it. If the predestination of the damned is not truth, then a whole lot of Calvinistic thinkers need to revamp their basic tenants, including JMJ.

If man cannot do anything other than he does under the very same set of circumstances, no freedom can be predicated of his intents or subsequent actions. If there is only one possible consequent for any given antecedent, there is no freedom possible. If there is no freedom possible, morality cannot be predicated of any intents or subsequent choices. If there is no morality possible, no blame or praise can be attached to any intents or subsequent action.

God blames and punishes men for their choices. Man must be the cause of his intents and subsequent actions if he is to be blamed or praised. If man is to be blamed for the failure to repent and exercise faith, man, not God, must be the cause of those intents.

God calls on sinners everwhere to repent. They do not need to 'have their heart repaired' to do what He commands. God is NOT a taskmaster, demanding out of the sinner something he has no power to do. God calls upon the sinner to exercise the ability he already possess, and to utilize that ability and power to repent.