Not the best referenced or researched…. QUICK Facebook convo.
Francis A. threw down some “proof texts” for theistic determinism that I will work through. Here is what he said, not to me, but another:
- … We can go to Deuteronomy 30 Jeremiah 32 Isaiah 45 the bible screams it [determinism/Calvinism] lol
DEUTERONOMY 30
Deuteronomy 30:6 certainly teaches God’s gracious work in the heart:
“the LORD your God will circumcise your heart.”
Calvin himself understood this as a work of spiritual renewal and regeneration.
The Provisionist response is “God doesn’t change hearts,” rather, the question is whether this verse establishes the additional Calvinist claim that regeneration must occur first and irresistibly produce faith.
Even the immediate context complicates that conclusion. Verses 1–2 speak of Israel returning to the LORD, and verse 10 again speaks of turning to Him with all the heart and soul.
This is where Chris Craig’s discussion, “Monergistic Circumcision? Is That Really a Thing?”, is helpful. He points attention to the larger biblical context of “heart circumcision.” Deuteronomy 10:16 actually commands Israel,
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”
Jeremiah 4:4 similarly calls people to circumcise their hearts. That does not mean humans regenerate themselves; it demonstrates that Scripture can speak simultaneously of God’s gracious work and a genuine human response. The tension is also recognized in the Bible.org treatment of Deuteronomy 30:6, which notes that God performs the circumcision here while Israel is commanded to perform the spiritual act elsewhere.
Leighton Flowers makes a similar contextual point in “Is Faith an Effectual Gift?”. The issue isn’t whether God’s grace is necessary—it absolutely is. Rather, Deuteronomy 30 does not explicitly present the Calvinistic sequence of regeneration → repentance → faith.
In fact, immediately after verse 6, Moses says, “And you shall again obey the LORD” (v. 8), and then speaks of turning to the LORD “with all your heart and with all your soul” (v. 10). Finally, verses 11–14 deserve serious attention:
“this commandment…is not too difficult for you,”
And
“the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”
Whatever one concludes about regeneration, Moses is not presenting God’s revealed command as something people are constitutionally incapable of responding to until an irresistible regeneration occurs.
Thus, Deuteronomy 30:6 demonstrates God’s gracious initiative; it does not, by itself, establish Calvinism’s deterministic order of regeneration preceding faith. The real disagreement remains what God’s grace accomplishes: does grace change the will first so that faith becomes inevitable, or does grace overcome our inability by enabling a genuine response?
JEREMIAH 32
Jeremiah 31:33 and 32:39–40 are sometimes presented as proof that God must unilaterally regenerate the sinner before the sinner can respond: God writes His law on their hearts, gives them “one heart and one way,” and puts His fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Him. But Daniel Whitby directly challenges that inference in his Refuting Arguments for Irresistible Grace. He first points out that these promises concern the whole house of Israel and Judah, rather than being explicitly restricted to a secretly elected subset. He then argues that promises made to a corporate people cannot simply be turned into proof that God’s work upon individuals is necessarily irresistible. (Daniel Whitby, “Refuting Arguments for Irresistible Grace (Part 3),” Society of Evangelical Arminians)
- Daniel Whitby: Refuting Arguments for Irresistible Grace (Part 1)
- Daniel Whitby: Arguments against Irresistible Grace (Part 2)
- Daniel Whitby: Refuting Arguments for Irresistible Grace (Part 3)
Whitby’s deeper point is that God’s gracious action does not imply human passivity. Scripture repeatedly commands people to do what God also promises to accomplish: God promises to circumcise the heart, yet commands people to circumcise their hearts; He promises to turn and restore His people, yet repeatedly calls them to turn to Him. Whitby therefore argues that when Scripture says God “gives” something that He also commands people to exercise, the exercise of the human faculty is still involved. Applied to Jeremiah 31–32, God’s promise to write His law and put His fear in their hearts demonstrates God’s gracious initiative and assistance, but it does not establish the Calvinist claim that the sinner is purely passive or that God’s grace must irresistibly produce faith. As Whitby puts it elsewhere in the same discussion, God’s calls to spiritually dead people to “hear,” “turn,” and “live” are not meaningless commands to do something that God alone can perform. (Daniel Whitby, “Refuting Arguments for Irresistible Grace (Part 3),” Society of Evangelical Arminians)
ISAIAH 45
The Calvinist reading of Isaiah 45:22 generally depends upon making a distinction that the verse itself does not make. God declares, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” Calvinism can acknowledge that this is a genuine universal proclamation while distinguishing it from the effectual call—the inward work supposedly given only to the elect. In that framework, the command to “look” is the outward call, while only those whom God has already determined to save receive the inward, irresistible grace that enables them actually to do so. The difficulty is that Isaiah does not say, “Look unto me if I have first regenerated you,” nor does he introduce two different kinds of saving calls. The text simply presents God as the source of salvation and calls “all the ends of the earth” to look to Him.
This creates an important exegetical question for the Calvinist interpretation: Where does Isaiah 45:22 teach the additional step of pre-faith regeneration followed by an irresistible response? The Calvinist system supplies that sequence, but the verse itself supplies only the divine invitation and the promised salvation: “Look… and be saved.” Indeed, Calvin himself acknowledged the breadth of the invitation, describing Isaiah 45:22 as God inviting “all without exception” to come to Him. The Provisionist objection, therefore, is not that God lacks sovereignty or that sinners can save themselves. It is that God’s sovereign grace can genuinely enable the commanded response without determining that response irresistibly. Isaiah says God saves; it says God calls; it tells people to look. The Calvinist must demonstrate from the text—not merely import from the theological system—why that call must be understood as an ineffectual outward call for most people and an irresistible regenerating call for a select few.