TRANSCRIPT 1:

However, according to Reformed determinism, the Ninevites who repented had already been effectually called, unconditionally, before creation. Jonah’s message was therefore not the ultimate cause distinguishing those who repented from those who did not. It was the ordained means, but the decisive cause was God’s prior, irresistible determination. In that sense the story becomes a kind of “cosmic lottery”—not because Calvinists would describe election that way, but because the decisive distinction was settled unconditionally before anyone in Nineveh ever heard Jonah’s voice.

In that framework, God sent a messenger to overcome His own withholding of the grace necessary for those people to respond. Jonah’s preaching did not make repentance possible; it was the predetermined instrument through which God brought the predetermined elect to a predetermined response. The narrative reads like a genuine warning followed by a genuine human response. The deterministic system underneath it says the decisive question had already been answered before Nineveh heard Jonah at all.

Calvary is muted in a similar way by this sixteenth-century dogma. The message of the cross becomes secondary to the “lottery.” The cross may be proclaimed, the gospel may be preached, and sinners may be called to repent and believe—but the decisive question of who will actually receive the grace necessary to do so was, on this view, settled unconditionally before creation.

If that is so, then even Calvary begins to look less like God’s gracious provision genuinely offered to sinners and more like the historical means by which an already-determined number of sinners are brought to an already-determined salvation.

The same pattern appears in the flood. Noah preached, yet God effectually chose only eight and passed over the rest. And according to the determinist framework articulated by Piper, Sproul, Hendryx, and others, even the evil committed by those who were judged falls within God’s exhaustive determination—after which God judges them for those very acts.

The warnings appeared real. The preaching seemed genuine. The repentance was essentially orchestrated. The judgment was redundant. For if the entire outcome had already been unconditionally determined before creation, what could the warning ultimately change? What could the preaching ultimately alter? What could the sinner ultimately do otherwise? Beneath it all, according to the system, the decisive outcomes had already been unconditionally settled.

If theistic determinism is true in the way these Calvinist determinists describe it, then the apparent contingency of those events is illusory—not because Jonah’s preaching was imaginary, or because Nineveh’s repentance did not happen, but because the warning, the response, and the outcome could never have been otherwise. Those who would repent had already been unconditionally selected to repent. Those passed over had been denied the grace necessary to do otherwise.

The biblical drama remains on the stage, but the determinist script has already written every line: every response, every refusal, every act of evil, every repentant person, and every judgment.

It is a sad result when a theological system makes Scripture’s genuine calls to repentance functionally secondary to a decree that, before creation, supposedly determined who would receive the grace necessary to respond—and who would be passed over.

TRANSCRIPT 2:

The Cosmic Lottery

• This is a rough outline to a chapter I will add to my digital book as I revamp the already written chapters. This chapter will essentially detail the pitfalls of determinism, whether secular/atheistic, or theistic.

In other words, were Enoch, Lot, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Rahab, Ruth, David, and the rest of the Old Testament saints effectually regenerated by a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit so as to decisively cause them to believe the truth God had revealed to them?

If we are going to interpret John 6 as addressing an overarching ontological reality of fallen humanity—namely, that fallen men cannot believe divine truth unless they are first regenerated—then it seems difficult to avoid that conclusion. The Old Testament saints were fallen human beings just as we are. If regeneration was an absolute prerequisite for believing God’s revealed truth, then they too must have been supernaturally regenerated in order to believe.

This leads directly into the Reformed doctrine of effectual calling. The elect whom God effectually calls will respond positively, while those whom He does not effectually call will not. Regeneration is God’s work, and the sinner’s response is ultimately the inevitable result of God’s prior work within the elect.

But this raises the obvious question: Why doesn’t God effectually call everyone?

Romans 9 is commonly brought forward as the answer. Election is God’s sovereign prerogative; He has mercy upon whom He has mercy. His decision does not ultimately rest upon anything found in the individual. The human being therefore has no grounds for questioning God’s sovereign choice any more than he has grounds for questioning why God saved Noah and his family from the Flood while allowing the rest of humanity to perish, or why He chooses to eternally punish sinners.

But notice what happens when this principle is carried through the biblical narrative.

The question is no longer merely whether God saves. The question becomes what ultimately distinguishes the person who responds in faith from the person who does not.

If regeneration and effectual calling are the decisive causes of saving faith, then the sinner’s response cannot ultimately be the distinguishing factor. Those who believe do so because God effectually called them. Those who do not believe do so because they were not effectually called.

The decisive distinction therefore exists prior to the response itself.

And that brings us to Nineveh.

The Ninevites heard Jonah’s preaching, repented, and were spared. The narrative presents Jonah’s proclamation as a genuine warning and the Ninevites’ repentance as a genuine human response. But according to Reformed determinism, those Ninevites who repented had already been effectually called, unconditionally, before creation. Jonah’s message was therefore not the ultimate cause distinguishing those who repented from those who did not. It was the ordained means, but the decisive cause was God’s prior, irresistible determination.

In that sense, the story becomes a kind of “cosmic lottery”—not because Calvinists would describe election that way, but because the decisive distinction was settled unconditionally before anyone in Nineveh ever heard Jonah’s voice.

God sent a messenger to overcome His own withholding of the grace necessary for those people to respond. Jonah’s preaching did not make repentance possible; it was the predetermined instrument through which God brought the predetermined elect to a predetermined response.

The narrative reads like a genuine warning followed by a genuine human response. The deterministic system underneath it says that the decisive question had already been answered before Nineveh heard Jonah at all.

And this is precisely where the problem becomes difficult to escape.

If God could have effectually called the others but chose not to, then the difference between those who repented and those who did not ultimately lies not in the message, not in the warning, and not in something the individuals themselves did. It lies in God’s unconditional determination concerning them.

The same logic reaches all the way to Calvary.

Calvary is muted in a similar way by this sixteenth-century dogma. The message of the cross becomes secondary to the “lottery.” The cross may be proclaimed, the gospel may be preached, and sinners may be called to repent and believe—but the decisive question of who will actually receive the grace necessary to do so was, on this view, settled unconditionally before creation.

If that is so, then even Calvary begins to look less like God’s gracious provision genuinely offered to sinners and more like the historical means by which an already-determined number of sinners are brought to an already-determined salvation.

The cross remains absolutely necessary within the system. The preaching of the gospel remains necessary. Faith remains necessary. Repentance remains necessary. But none of these, in themselves, effect the decisive stirring of the soul that results in saving faith. The Word may be preached, the warning may be heard, and the sinner may be commanded to repent and believe, but the decisive work must first occur through regeneration. The irresistible and effectual work of God must make the person spiritually alive before that person can respond savingly.

And this creates a striking tension with the way Scripture portrays the power of God’s Word. The Word is described as living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Yet within the deterministic framework, the preached Word itself cannot ultimately account for why one sinner responds while another does not. The same gospel may be heard by two equally fallen sinners, yet only one responds because only one has first been effectually regenerated.

The decisive distinction, therefore, is not ultimately found in the Word that both heard, nor in the warning that both received, nor in the command to repent that confronted both of them. It is found in the prior work of God within one and not the other.

The gospel is therefore proclaimed universally, but the grace that makes the proclamation effectual is distributed according to an unconditional decree. The Word is preached to all, but only those whom God has first regenerated are given the ability to respond savingly.

The result is that the historical preaching of the Word becomes the ordained instrument through which a prior decree is executed. The message appears to confront the sinner with a genuine possibility, yet the decisive question of whether that message will produce saving faith has already been settled before the sinner ever hears it.

The Word speaks in time.

The decree settled the response before time.

And this brings us to Noah.

Noah certainly was not the worst preacher in history. In fact, within the biblical account, his preaching was accompanied by a remarkable testimony of righteousness and obedience. Yet if the Reformed doctrine of effectual calling is correct, Noah’s lack of converts cannot ultimately be attributed to a failure of preaching technique, persuasion, clarity, or faithfulness.

The root cause of the people’s rejection was not ultimately found in Noah’s preaching, nor even in their own independent response to it. According to the determinist framework, God had determined not to effectually call them and not to grant them the regenerating grace necessary to respond positively to Noah’s message.

Conversely, the reason Noah and his family believed and were preserved was ultimately because God had determined to save them and effectually brought about the response necessary to that end. Thus, the decisive distinction between those who accepted God’s warning and those who rejected it was established by God’s prior determination.

In that sense, Noah was essentially 100 percent effective in accomplishing the purpose God had actually decreed for his preaching. Those whom God determined to save were saved; those whom He determined to pass over remained in their unbelief. Noah’s preaching did not fail to accomplish God’s predetermined purpose. Rather, within the system, the ultimate success or failure of his preaching was determined by God’s prior decision concerning the people who heard it.

This means that the people who perished were not ultimately lost because Noah’s message was insufficiently powerful. They were lost because, according to the doctrine, God had not determined to give them the effectual grace that would cause them to accept the message. The same preaching that was ordained to produce faith in the elect was ordained to leave the non-elect in their unbelief.

And that exposes the same difficulty we encountered with Nineveh. If God alone determines who receives the grace necessary to respond, then the apparent success or failure of the preacher is ultimately secondary. Jonah could preach and Nineveh could repent because God had determined to effectually call those Ninevites. Noah could preach for years and see no mass repentance because God had not determined to effectually call the people who perished.

The warnings appeared real. The preaching seemed genuine. The repentance was essentially orchestrated. The judgment was redundant—not in the sense that the ordained means had no purpose, but in the sense that the ultimate outcome could not possibly have been altered by the response of those involved.

For if the entire outcome had already been unconditionally determined before creation, what could the warning ultimately change?

What could the preaching ultimately alter?

What could the sinner ultimately do otherwise?

The Reformed answer is that God uses means to accomplish His predetermined ends. The warning accomplishes its predetermined purpose. The preaching accomplishes its predetermined purpose. The repentance accomplishes its predetermined purpose. The judgment accomplishes its predetermined purpose.

But that answer only reinforces the underlying problem.

Everything that happens is the means God predetermined to bring about what He had already predetermined would happen.

If theistic determinism is true in the way these Calvinist determinists describe it, then the apparent contingency of these events is ultimately illusory—not because Jonah’s preaching was imaginary, or because Nineveh’s repentance did not happen, or because Noah’s preaching was meaningless, but because the decisive outcomes could never have been otherwise.

Those who would repent had already been unconditionally selected to repent.

Those passed over had been denied the grace necessary to do otherwise.

The biblical drama remains on the stage, but the determinist script has already written every line: every response, every refusal, every act of evil, every repentant person, and every judgment.

And this brings us back to the original problem.

If regeneration is required before a fallen person can believe God’s revealed truth, and if regeneration is granted only to those unconditionally elected by God, then the ultimate distinction between the believer and the unbeliever is not found in the response to God’s revelation. It is found in the prior decree that determines who will receive the grace necessary to respond.

That makes Jonah’s warning genuine—but not genuinely decisive.

It makes Nineveh’s repentance real—but predetermined.

It makes Noah’s preaching real—but unable to alter the predetermined division between those saved and those destroyed.

And it makes the proclamation of the gospel universal in its announcement while the saving grace necessary to respond remains particular in its distribution.

The sinner is commanded to repent, but whether he receives the grace necessary to repent has already been unconditionally decided.

He is commanded to believe, but whether he receives the grace necessary to believe has already been unconditionally decided.

He hears the gospel, but the decisive question of whether the gospel will result in faith has already been answered.

That is the theological mechanism behind what I am calling the “Cosmic Lottery.”

Not chance.

Not randomness.

Not an accusation that Calvinists believe salvation is arbitrary in the ordinary sense of the word.

Rather, it is the unavoidable appearance produced when the decisive distinction between two equally fallen people is located in an unconditional divine choice made before either person existed.

One hears and believes.

Another hears and does not believe.

But beneath both responses, the determinist says, God had already decided who would receive the effectual grace that guarantees the first response and who would be passed over.

The outcome therefore appears to unfold through history, but the decisive distinction was established before history began.

The warning appears to open a genuine possibility.

The preaching appears to confront the hearer with a genuine choice.

The gospel appears to summon the sinner to a genuine response.

Yet beneath the system, the outcome has already been settled.

The biblical drama unfolds in time.

The decree settled it before time.

It is a sad result when a theological system makes Scripture’s genuine calls to repentance functionally secondary to a decree that, before creation, supposedly determined who would receive the grace necessary to respond—and who would be passed over.

The problem, then, is not that Jonah preached so well that Nineveh repented, or that Noah somehow preached poorly so that those who heard him failed to respond. Nor is the problem that God sovereignly saves; we all believe that. The root of the problem is what happens when that sovereignty is defined as an unconditional determination that decisively causes one person to respond while withholding the grace necessary for another to do so.

Again, the problem is the claim that God’s sovereign determination has already rendered the ultimate human response certain before the person ever encounters the revealed truth.

And if that is the case, then the question is unavoidable:

When Jonah stood outside Nineveh and cried, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” was Nineveh genuinely being called to repent—or was Jonah merely announcing the historical means by which a predetermined group of elect Ninevites would inevitably respond?

That is the question the doctrine must answer.

And that is where the Cosmic Lottery begins.