I recently noticed someone tried to rebut my article on Leighton Flowers called ‘How to Flunk Soteriology101’. That is nice to see that Leighton’s followers are picking up the slack for him. The issue often is that his followers often don’t add any new content and only repeat old stale lines that Flowers gives them. So, over on the Bible Thumping Wingnut blog version of my post, someone responded to me. Here is what they said:

I am not sure these are really the best ‘rebuttals.’

Well, it seems like many people think otherwise.

1. Always conflating Calvinism with determinism
“Every time I listen to Leighton Flowers speak, he conflates Calvinism with determinism.”

I’ve only watched/read a few of Dr. Leighton Flowers videos/blog posts, however, you seem to be overgeneralizing here from personal perception. He does not ‘always conflate Calvinism with determinism,’ and from what I have seen generally clarifies the issue when it comes up {e.g. not all Calvinists are strict determinists, but consistent Calvinists are theistic determinists; what John Calvin thought on determinism, etc.) and quotes from professed Calvinists when relevant. https://soteriology101.wordpress.com/2016/11/12/calvinisms-greatest-fallacy/
https://soteriology101.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/does-omniscience-require-determinism/
For this to be a decent rebuttal, you would need to both post actual examples of him mixing the two to show it wasn’t a strawman, and somehow show that it was the rule vs. an overgeneralization.

You have missed the point of the objection as this is a common error he does in conversation. I’ve conversed and talked with Leighton before for multiple hours. I am fine with him saying Calvinist should be determinist, but Calvinism is more than just determinism.

2. Unrealistic expectations
“He seems to think that if the Bible isn’t professing Calvinism or Divine Determinism in every verse, then those beliefs are unbiblical.”
Again, this seems to be an argument from your personal perception vs. any actual examples of him doing or claiming any such thing.

I have no reason to go through the hundreds of materials to demonstrate this error nor the former.  Steve Hays already cited an example of that. They are for those that are familiar with dialoguing with Flowers to remember. Just actually listen to where he reads a verse and then adds a bunch of Calvinist terms to imply since they are lacking from a particular text, therefore, Calvinism is lacking in the Bible. The issue is we often don’t think that every text teaches Calvinism and that the objection is self-refuting because the very same text lacks any reference to libertarian freedom. I had an exchange with his friend Brian Wagner(Open Theist Professor) about the same issue over on Leighton’s own blog.

3. Burden shifting
“He believes his view is clearly laid out in the Bible and, as such, acts as though he doesn’t have to prove it.”
Once again, you are filtering things through your personal perception. I would recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o43rLyiM2aU
He dives into the context, the Greek, parallel scripture, etc. to support his view. While he is very cordial about the possibility others might have a different perspective, he spends a great deal of time proving his point. I have read several articles of his that dive into the scripture backing his views.

Flowers isn’t known for diving into “context”, “Greek”, etc. We have had him laugh at us for using the Greek because he didn’t enjoy that a Hina clause defeated his argument. I’ve seen his article on Ephesians 1 and I’m not impressed. I have dealt with his ‘exposition’ of Romans 9 and I know he has his tactics. I disagree that he is a good exegete and I think he tends to fail in establishing his views. He often assumes libertarianism to prove it. So, you haven’t changed my mind, but you have made me happy with critiquing his Ephesians 1 interpretation.

“This ties in with the previous point. It makes conversation nearly unbearable and completely useless.”
Again, your personal perception. Consider the possibility that conversation might not go anywhere if you are filtering everything through false preconceptions.

You haven’t demonstrated they were false and most importantly others have had the same experience.

4. Tu Quoque
He thinks Calvinists commit this fallacy when showing the freewill theist bears a double-edged sword in some of his criticisms of determinism. The issue is whether the Calvinist reconciles the problem on his own system and if the indeterminist wishes to present self-refuting criticisms.
His accusation of the tu quoque fallacy used by some Calvinists is an accurate example of the fallacy in action. https://soteriology101.wordpress.com/2016/07/14/you-too/
As he explains, “the Traditionalist is critiquing an actual claim of Calvinism while the Calvinist is appealing to something all Traditionalists deny (i.e. if God knows something and does not prevent it then it is the same as Him determining it).”

Well, this article was written while in a conversation with Leighton and I was writing down points of the conversation that I disagreed with. The issue is that it grew popular and I decided to add more issues that I’ve seen in his thought. The charge that Calvinist use Tu quoque was charged against us in the conversation with and I have responded to this point. We have not argued that God determines what he knows(at least that wasn’t my argument on this point). It was that any view of foreknowledge and a creator God has the same problem of evil. His response to our theodicy refutes his own theodicy is the point that you have missed.

5. Incoherent Doctrine of God
“he can’t figure out how God can think if he is a timeless being. He believes that if God does think, it would require a temporal process (as if he needs time to move to new thoughts). This is rather incoherent. God knows all things from a divine perspective in a logical moment and this requires no time. But while maintaining God is timelessly eternal, he also believes in Divine Passibility and denies a strong form of immutability. The issue is that if you accept the proposition “God is timelessly eternal”, then you can’t maintain God is a changing temporal being. Dr. Flowers should look at why scholars maintain these beliefs, what those beliefs entail, and why his beliefs leave him with an inconsistent doctrine of God.”
This seems to be more speculation, and you are also presenting a false dichotomy. It isn’t true that God being timelessly eternal that God cannot be temporal as well. It is God’s character that does not change; not His form presented to man (e.g. His presence in the temple, leading the Israelites by cloud or fire, Spirit moving over the face of the waters, theophanies, etc.) Jesus, for example, took on human form and was born, lived, died, and rose in a specific historical sequence. If you truly believe God can’t do such a thing and be eternal, then you do not believe in Christ as portrayed in scripture – and I highly doubt that is what you meant to say.
From the little I have read of his works, he holds something similar to C. S. Lewis’s view that God, as Supreme Being, is both outside time and inside time. That isn’t incoherent.

This goes to show how far modern Christians are away from the historical dialectic on the issue of how God and time are related. You said that God could be timeless and temporal in the same way and at the same’time’. That is clearly a contradiction as any and should be rejected as such. I recommend you read Paul Helm’s work on the issue of how God relates to time. The issue of how the incarnation could be both timeless and temporal deals with the distinction in natures. You didn’t read any of the resources provided in the article on impassibility. I like thinking about abstract objects as a helpful analogy. The number 4 is timeless, unchanging, and necessary object and yet it is has a temporal instance where we see 4 apples.

This was also apparent in this conversation with Brother Chris Harris. He imputed to God human emotions. That would entail that the creation at certain times makes God sad and at other times makes him happy. That God changes based on what creatures do. At one moment he is x and at the next moment, he is ~x. So, is God timeless or is God temporal? How can Leighton maintain divine timelessness and still have God being temporal? He wants to have his cake and eat it too.”
No, you are again misunderstanding the character of God, creating a false dichotomy of the nature of God, and attempting to strawman Leighton Flower’s beliefs. God changing His emotions doesn’t mean He Himself changes. When you are sad, do you stop being you? When you are happy, does it change your underlying character? No. To reject that God has emotions is to reject countless passages of scripture (Matt 9:36, Jn 11:35, Isa 63:5, etc.)

The issue is that we don’t agree on the relationship of God and time nor do we agree on the issue of Divine Simplicity. The issue with Divine Emotions and changing passions are that God is timeless and cannot change from one thing to the next because of the lack of time in the first place. The issue of emotions being attributed to God has been dealt with before on this website and with better thinkers than you or I. So, I recommend you check into these:

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2017/05/18/divine-impassibility-by-paul-helm/

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2017/07/27/paul-helm-eternity/

http://spirited-tech.com/COG/2017/03/02/impassibility-of-god/

6. Bad philosophical responses
“He presents philosophical ideas that he is not willing to defend, but only to appeal to when challenged on issues regarding foreknowledge and the problem of evil. The only defense for such doctrines he has is to chalk it up to “mystery”. Promises that these contradictions fade into the mist without any justification. The arbitrary appeals to the mystery are quite annoying and make any serious claim to mystery indistinguishable from either being an arbitrary claim or an actual mystery.”
From what I have seen of his work, your perception is quite opposite to his many attempts to explain views from context/scripture – not dismissing it as all a mystery. For example, he dives deep into the problem of evil in this video and defends his views well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfcAeJVYfG4
He does hold that how exactly free will operates (it’s limits, etc.) or God’s specific reasoning is a mystery – but that is because finite man cannot fully know God’s reasons or works. It is not an appeal to mystery to avoid a contradiction or tension in a text.

The video you posted is just him ranting about Calvinism and a mass shooting. It seems like all he has as an answer to most of his philosophical problem is just him arbitrarily appealing to mystery. It is not that appeal to mystery is not an honest and perfectly acceptable move. It is that he makes his move arbitrarily and then seems to not grant the Calvinist move of appealing mystery because you people find it to be less intuitive. We appeal to mystery based on exegetical and transcendental matters.

7. God and Causation
This section doesn’t actually seem to be an attack on Leighton, but an admission that he is right that Calvinism has shortcomings as currently defined.
“It has also been pointed out that this objection (that God causes evil) refutes free will theism as well. In free will theism, God is also the “Cause of Sin” and “Author of Evil” which I have addressed before”
You are again using a false dichotomy merged with a strawman. God is not claimed to be the author or cause of sin in free will theism.

It is actually the way Leighton has defined the issue is the problem being discussed. I never said Freewill theist claim this, but rather it is entailed by what they believe. So, again you have missed the argument.

8. Love Potion
Your objection here is not a true objection, as Leighton himself admits there are many variations of what individual Calvinists might believe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgwxoijlq68 He also usually is responding to actual quotes from Calvinists (Piper, John Calvin) and addressing the problems with the quotes – not making a blanket claim that every Calvinist must consistently agree with them.
“I don’t think a Calvinist would say that acting freely entails that an agent is acting responsibly. It contains a contradiction: it maintains that the woman both loves and does not love the man. The fact of the matter is that the compatibilist considers whether that individual is in their right mind. If Leighton was right, then it seems that anyone not in their right mind is morally culpable. What would Dr. Flowers do with the man on mind-altering drugs that rapes a child? They wouldn’t do that under normal circumstances. I doubt that Leighton is going to say they weren’t morally culpable. Here is more on this topic.”
This doesn’t seem to be so much of a rebuttal so much as you just might not have read or understood his writings on the topic. (As to someone on mind-altering drugs, they would be morally culpable if they took the drugs willingly, and not if they were forced to take them and could not resist the effects – so I am not sure your example here is a good one.)

If there are so many variations, then why does he keep dealing with pop culture Calvinist and not the best case that Calvinist have presented? Even you are dealing with the lesser case because this article has changed since it was posted here. Well, it isn’t intuitive that he would be completely innocent if someone spiked his drink or if his drink was accidentally switched with one of the same exact taste, but more alcohol content causing him to underestimate how much he could drink. Now, in those events, he wasn’t intending to get drunk but was completely innocent on the bartenders’ mistake. Was he innocent and not culpable? The issue is still Leighton maintains that this is an expression of his being and isn’t an expression of his being and therefore still maintains the incoherence I originally spoke about.

“9. Eternal Now
“Dr. Flowers maintains that God is timelessly eternal and, for him, this answer fixes the foreknowledge issue: If God is not in time, then nothing is “future” to Him and thus, He can’t foreknow anything. He presents this without any inclination to defend such beliefs. But I have been over this before and here and here.”
Dr. Leighton Flowers doesn’t believe God ‘can’t foreknow anything.’ I have no idea where you are coming up with your ideas about what he thinks.
https://soteriology101.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/foreknowledge-doesnt-require-predestination/“

His whole argument is that foreknowledge is not the case because God sees everything in the “Eternal Now”. So, you again are either misinformed or Leighton uses another philosophical position that he doesn’t understand. I doubt he is up to date on the philosophical dialectic, but still is a high level of laziness on his part to endorse ideologies that he doesn’t grasp.

10. Is God merely determining to redeem His own determinations?
You don’t actually rebut his objection (just mention that it is ‘odd’,) and then you continue by falsely conflating ‘knowing’ with determining. The quote from Steve Hayes admits the charge to be true, not false (that God is like a deterministic author who creates the problem only to later fix it.)

Hays points out how his objection would render reading any story ridiculous. He should regard writing a story as ridiculous and give up books. The point is that it is a non-problem for the Calvinist and it isn’t a problem.

11. Why does God predestine us to be wrong? Does God love Calvinists more?
It might help if you explained the context of what it is you are actually responding to.

I’m responding to a strange question you theologian of the century has repeated on his podcast and in his dialogues with us.

12. Free will
Your objection here seems to rely on creating a slippery slope argument vs. addressing his actual thoughts.

I quote him and explain how his definition is not that good for the Libertarian vs Determinist debate. So, just another one of your miscalculations.

13. Ability
You apparently agree that the Calvinist term Total Inability is a poor way to describe what scripture teaches about man – so this is not a rebuttal but a seeming agreement. However, your further points asking what Flowers believes could be easily answered by reading his own posts.
https://soteriology101.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/sick-or-dead/
Not understanding what someone thinks isn’t actually a rebuttal of what they think.

I’m not sure on how pointing out Flowers’ strawmen aren’t a rebuttal. That in my circles are a part of debates and are commonly used as rebuttals.

14. Hardening vs total depravity
“Steve said There’s a difference between inability to understand and inability to believe. A person can understand something, but be unreceptive to the truth.”
While a nice soundbyte, this doesn’t actually fit with the definitions of the words themselves. Understanding is applied knowledge, such as discernment, reason, or action. If you understand the Earth is round, you must first believe the Earth is round. If you understand an arguments reasoning and conclusion, then by definition you must understand the premises. If Israel could understand, they could have turned and been healed (Isa 6:10) If they had no ability already to understand and turn and be healed, there would have been no reason to harden them. If Israel had not experienced a hardening in part, then the message would not have been able to go out to the Gentiles as Christ would have never been crucified. (Rom 11:25)
But note the more important definition switch you did. You changed ‘unable to believe’ with ‘unreceptive to truth’ – but those are not equivalents. Scripture shows that many resist the truth (Jn 3:20, II Tim 3:8) but it does not treat them as unable to believe (Especially with all the many graces God has given to reveal Himself in Christ, present the gospel message, give the Spirit to convict regarding sin, etc.)

This is just the common fallacy of begging the question. You have assumed that Total depravity is false in order to establish your opinion that it is false. That is just to ignore the scriptures that teach it isn’t in the unbelievers’ character to believe.