In Defense of James White: Part 2

In the comment section of the latest post at Controversial Calvinism concerning Dr. White, Steve wants those of us who are defending Dr. White to provide a quote that proves that Dr. White has not changed his views with regard to hyper-Calvinism. . I find this very odd indeed. In the original post Steve asserts that Dr. White has changed his views. His argument is that Dr. White has moved from a hyper-Calvinist to what others are calling a "high" Calvinist.

The odd thing is that in his post he offers no quotes or citations where Dr. White changes his views, not one. You would think that Steve would have quotes from Dr. White from years ago that contradict what he is not saying. But there is nothing like that in his post. Further, Steve admits that he has not "read all of his [Dr. White's] work" on this subject. One wonders how much he has actually read. It seems odd to me that a person who gives no evidence of his assertion and has not read the author's works on the subject would expect those who have read all of Dr. White's works on the subject and who have listened to him teach on this subject for 12 years to give evidence. Everything in me wants to leave this post at that. However, to stop the mouth of the naysayers, I will provide a few quotes.

Before that, however, let us review. Steve is asserting that Dr. White has three new beliefs: "1) God loves all men, though God's love is not monolithic; 2) God's will (his revealed will) is that all men obey his commands to repent and believe the gospel; 3) In that context (revealed will and command) we can say that God desires the salvation of all men." Thus, if I can show a quote that affirms anyone of these three points in Dr. Whites written works, the case can be settled that Dr. White has not changed his view.

In his book on the subject of Calvinism, The Potters Freedom, Dr. White says the following in commenting on Acts 17:30, "Actually, the text says that God wills for 'all' to come to repentance, and of course, this is quite true" (TPF, 149, emphasis added). This one quote should be enough to show that Dr. White has held to Steve's second point from at least the time of writing this book. But there is more. On the same page Dr. White goes on to state, "Next Dr. Geisler confuses the prescriptive will of God found in His law, which commands all men everywhere to repent, with the gift of repentance given to the elect in regeneration. It does not follow that if it is God's will to bring the elect to repentance that the law does not command repentance of everyone" (TPF, 149-150). Again, this is a clear affirmation of the second point that Steve seems to think Dr. White has changed on.

While I disagree that the accused should have to provide evidence that he is not guilty, I have provided the above evidence in an attempt to show that, in fact, Dr. White has not changed his views on the issues at hand. Now, the right thing for Steve to do is apologize to Dr. White and rejoice that another person in the Kingdom of God has a proper understanding of the will of God for all to repent, even the non-elect. Will this happen, we will have to keep our eyes on Controversial Calvinism to find out.