Featured Semi-Pelagianism and Leighton Flowers

People are posting videos of Leighton Flowers on this site. He's good and I think he gives Calvinists fits in many areas. I have recently become familiar with his work and have noticed a couple of things, one of which is that I think he is Semi-Pelagian. So I thought the above was interesting since he put it up himself.

He does a good job of defining the term in a way that disparages anyone who would use it on him. Does anyone though, know of a video or writing where he indicates that he is not Semi-Pelagian, rather than just that it is offensive to label him as such.

 

@Silverhair. He made it clear that he is offended by the term. And I thought he accurately defined the term. What he didn't do was say anything that indicated he disagreed with the meaning of the term - even as he himself defined it. One thing I don't like about Flowers is that he does this a lot. He goes right into debate technique mode (and he admits this himself right in the video) and then into outrage over the way he has been treated, without explaining what he does believe.

I noticed that once again you have led your reply with an insult, which is your tendency. Yes. I watched the video. I have watched a lot of his videos, though not all of them, and I have so far not found anything that would indicate to me that he is not Semi-Pelagian. I would think, if that term is offensive to you, you would either refute that you are one or at least come up with an alternative term. "Provisionist" won't do. As far as I know he coined it himself and is not authorized to claim that it is the traditional view of Southern Baptists.

I am not against the idea that God has provided everything necessary for our salvation and the only thing lacking is our response. What I am not sure about though, is the idea that we have an innate ability, naturally ours, that gives us the complete ability, without the Holy Spirit's help, to decide to come to Christ. I have so far not come across anything in Flowers videos that indicate to me that he does not believe this is the case - which means he exactly follows the definition of a semi-Pelagian. He des say that the gospel message is inspired but he comes short of saying that therefore it can exert a supernatural power on the soul of a person thus enabling them or encouraging them to believe.

If you know differently, put up the video or quote. He has a million videos and I could have easily missed one. It also bothers me when he puts up this what I think is fake outrage, when he does the same exact thing to Calvinists when he accuses them of being semi-gnostic and posts multiple videos of a guy making the case that Calvinism is reworked Manicheanism. Isn't that exactly what he is griping about?

 

@Silverhair. The minutes you listed above are interesting to me in that I am saying that Flowers is I think deliberately obscuring what is actually meant by the concept of man's will preceding God's grace. The question here is does man have the natural ability without any aid from the direct action of the Holy Spirit - to evaluate the gospel message and make use of the provisions of Christ's atoning sacrifice and offer of pardon by believing and repenting - on his own. No one is arguing that those provisions do not precede any action or any movement by man, or that man can take some kind of initiative towards real salvation before knowing about the gospel.

Why does Arminius say "I say then, that it is very plain from the Scriptures, that repentance and faith cannot be exercised except by the gift of God"? And, if you are tempted to say that this means that the gift of God just means the provision of the finished work of Christ and the gospel message Arminius goes on to say in the same context, "For God has determined to save them who believe by the preaching of the word, and the preaching of the word, without the cooperation of the Holy Spirit is useless, and can effect nothing." Look at Richard Baxter and his take on this. "Beloved friends, if the Lord had not awakened me to believe and to lay to heart these things myself, I should have remained in a dark and selfish state, and have perished for ever".

Clearly, both of those guys, neither one Calvinists, fully believed that a direct action of the Holy Spirit is at work whenever anyone gets saved. I do not see that in the video of Flowers that I have posted. He insists that the information and work of Christ is first, but he is not arguing in the video that a work of the Spirit, directly on the heart of the person, is necessary in order for them to come to Christ." And while the Lutheran fellow is correctly pointing out that the term Semi-Pelagian can have a negative connotation he does not try to make a case that that is what Flowers is or is not teaching in that video. In fact, it is not clear that he is even aware his comments are going to be used to clear Flowers from the charge of semi-Pelagianism.

What Flowers does here is very smart and very subtle. His claim that Semi-Pelagianism is where man initiates the salvation process is obscure at best. Like I said, semi-Pelagianism does not do this. What a semi-Pelagian believes is just that man was not so injured by the fall that he is unable to, on his own, respond to the gospel message and the finished work of Christ unaided by the Holy Spirit. I don't have anything against semi-Pelagians. For all I know they might be right. But I have discovered that this differs from Arminian, Baxterian, Wesleyan theology, and I think even the theology of Aquinas.

So once again, what I am trying to find out is whether anyone who is familiar with the work of Flowers can point me to something he has posted or written that indicates he believes that the Holy Spirit must directly work on a person before they can be saved. I'm not saying this is easy. I have read that Edwards and Owen, in some of their fairly brutal attacks on Arminianism, were actually arguing against semi-Pelagianism, so this does matter if one is trying to figure all this out. And once again, just to be clear, I am of the belief that all the guys above, from the past and including Dr. Flowers and the Lutheran are completely orthodox fellow believers and this though I think important, is not a primary issue.

 

It would actually be a lot simpler to explain things if that were the case but it does seem that several scriptures indicate certain spiritual things are revealed by the Spirit and that men do tend to not seek after such things on their own. Without spending a lot of time here, as this could be it's own thread, let me just say that in my opinion we as humans seek those things which we are motivated to seek. And unlike everything else we seek after, the Bible clearly states we don't naturally have such a motivation to seek after Christ. However; I do admit that it may well be that clearly telling someone they have offended God and are on their way to Hell may indeed be a sufficient source of motivation to make someone at least think. Maybe you're right.

We've been through all that before and like I said before, if the problem is man not coming because he really doesn't want to or choose to on his own then he is certainly blameable, and you could still call that an "inability".

What I'm looking at here is that the view of free will that Flowers has is not just opposed by Calvinists but Arminians, Wesleyans and even some Catholics. The Semi-Pelagian view is common among Baptists, my old pastor was one, and like everything else it is more of a spectrum than a set theology. As you know you have a spectrum on free will from Hyper-Calvinist all the way to Pelagian and everything in between. I just happen to think that it's important to know where Flowers is on this and I am assuming that you cannot point me to any video where he claims not to be Semi-Pelagian or any other word for the same thing that you can think of.

 

Following up @Silverhair . If I did this right, the above video, right at the 20 minute mark goes into some of the exact things I was trying to say. I just discovered this, by looking up the guy from Flowers's video at the opening post so I haven't heard it all but I thought it might be interesting. I don't claim to know who is finally right on this but thought it might be interesting for anyone else who has the same questions.

 

Sorry. I didn't get the above video to go to the 20 minute mark automatically so if your time is limited manually move to the 20 minute mark.
Also, the above video points out another problem I have with Flowers and that is the way he uses clips from videos of others and either debates them by cutting and using selected clips or as in the video from the OP, he edits the person to make them appear to agree with him, which it seems is not really the case, at least here.

 

What makes someone Semi-Pelagian is that their views line up with semi-Pelagianism.

If men are able by their own natural ability to evaluate the facts of the gospel and then decide for Christ on their own - that is indeed semi-Pelagianism. In truth, that is closer to flat out Pelagianism as Cooper points out in the video above. If God brings about faith in someone by arranging trials, circumstances, illnesses, setbacks, good gospel witnesses, exposure to scripture and so on and you are willing to believe that those things were essential and therefore primary causes of someone's coming to Christ, yet as you notice, there is not a direct action of the Holy Spirit directly on the heart of the person - then you would I think be more semi-Pelagian. According to Cooper, and I haven't heard much of him yet, but he seems to me to think that Provisionism is actually closer to Pelagianism.

What makes this complicated is that a regular historic Calvinist also believes in all those things above being sovereignly used by God to work faith in a person. But they also believe that the Holy Spirit acts directly upon the heart of a person at the minimum to enlighten, awaken, and convict.

The practical importance of this as a Baptist is the following. Many Baptists have always historically put a high stock in the Holy Spirit being the direct driver of someone getting saved or responding to a witness. Sermons constantly warned of the dangers of resisting a felt pull or prompting of the Holy Spirit leading you to salvation. (Calvinist Puritan era sermons constantly did this too.) Flowers to me, seems to go beyond this to the idea that we are unimpaired and free enough naturally that this is not necessary. Then he claims this to be the "traditional" Baptist view. I don't think it is. I think the traditional Baptist view is a mild type of Calvinism that denies a limited atonement and believes this grace is resistible. It differs from Arminianism in that it believes, like the Calvinists, that a true Christian will persevere to the end, always. And it differs from the Calvinists in that it does not have the tendency to emphasize the sovereignty of God to the point where man does not have a real responsibility to respond, and a real possibility of refusing to respond.

My open question is still this. Does Flowers system of "Provisionism" have a place in it for a direct pull or action on the heart of a person by the Holy Spirit? I understand he maintains that God has acted first towards us in providing an offer of forgiveness and redemption through the prior actions of Christ. And I realize he teaches that the gospel message must be heard before anyone can believe. I haven't come across anything that indicated he does, so far.

This question is extremely important for people who might stumble across Flowers's videos without realizing where he may be going with this.

 

That is him! That's pretty funny.