If you consider that I cannot see or hear as you suggest then, of course, there would be no point in you continuing.
It should be noted that citing such a scripture as you and Calvinists do is not underpinned by scripture (seeing as Judas is considered a reprobate):
Mark 4:10-12
When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
“ ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”
Okay AMR - no more debating.
It is incredible to me that anyone would even bring Mark 4:12 up in the context of an anti-Calvinistic discussion, for it is so heavy-laden with sovereignty-in-salvation.
God uses
means. No Calvinist (who knows what he's talking about) says otherwise. Men by nature
are totally unable. That doesn't mean they are all cookie-cutter people, with the same levels of either intellect or evil. Common grace is unevenly distributed.
The Word of God
is the "
power of God unto salvation." The Spirit applies the Word to men ordinarily to effect the change in their heart. God alone knows what "
amount" or "
timing" or "
portion," or whether "
blunt force" or "
sharp edge" of the Sword of the Spirit that God may use on any given person to change them.
And God will often use the same means to
soften some that He uses to
harden others.
Total Inability teaches that man is unable on His own to work any Spiritual good, to believe, or to prepare himself thereunto.
In Mark 4:12, Jesus, as God the Son, suggests by His choice of words, that under the ordinary, common effects of the Word and the Spirit (
had He spoken God's Word plainly) that the combination might have been sufficient to have converted many, many more, other things being equal.
Notice what Jesus does not say:
that apart from the Word and Spirit any of these persons would have believed or even desired to believe. These men would not, could not change on their own.
The presentation of the Word of God—the saving message—is a sovereignly directed act. Jesus, in His capacity as Sovereign Lord, refuses to speak in such a way as would be sufficient to break through the barriers of ignorance and hostility to the gospel. He refuses to act sovereignly to save these people. Jesus is shutting these people out of the kingdom sovereignly. They don't have a "
choice". My, oh my, how unfair.
These "
totally depraved" persons are left with stories that their naturally perverted minds trifle with, missing the spiritual truth that is abundantly evident in the same parables to the disciples. "
Oh, but Jesus explained them (sometimes) to the disciples!" Yes, He did on occasion. He gave them more of His Word and Spirit. Sovereignly.
Jesus' veiled teachings were themselves a response to the exhibited unbelief in response to His earlier teaching that was non-parabolic. "For as many who have (
how did they come to have it?) they shall be given more. And he who does not have—even what he has shall be taken away from him" (Matthew 13:12).
The anti-Calvinist assumes—and also assumes the text teaches—that if Jesus' message was clearer then the listeners would have "
got it," and been saved. Hence the typical anti-Calvinist reliance on a bare-bones gospel presentation (monotonously repetitive, reductionistic) and on "
effective" selling techniques—because it is all up to them!
We Calvinists (and discerning others) believe God works by
means, ordinary means, by which the Spirit works supernaturally, and especially sovereignly. Hearing the good news is a privilege, not a right. And that privilege is regularly abused by people who hear the plainest gospel presentations and reject them. And furthermore, being given "
ears to hear" is a necessary gift to make the Word understood in the heart. The surface meaning of the text seems to imply (by the term "
lest" = "
for fear that") God was afraid that if the people got a clearer message, they would turn from their wicked ways. Well, God isn't afraid of anything. And He certainly isn't one to miss His aim either in saving or damning.
Jesus' words are inseparable from both the context of the parable by which He is speaking, and the Isaiah passage He is quoting from. The Word is simply saying that God is sovereign as to
what, and
how much, and to
what degree He lets people hear and understand His truth. If more of His hearers had been given more grace to understand the parables, they would have been
savingly enabled. Instead,
Jesus used the parables as a means of judgment. Additional light is withheld from them, the Spirit
and the Word is held back sovereignly, and the Words of Life fall on deaf ears. Think over John 9:39.
What condemns them? Their natural condition of unbelief.
No more debating, indeed. Sonnet.
AMR
