A Review of Debating Calvinism by Ray Hammond M.Div., Th.M.   If you have not yet read Debating Calvinism, and are considering doing so, and you are assuming that it will represent the best of the Reformed and non-Reformed views of salvation, you will be sadly disappointed. While White presents a good argument for his case, developed on solid exegesis of relevant passages, Hunt is way out of his league. This is the biggest mismatch I have seen to date. The debate is so unevenly matched in White’s favor—which is most clearly seen when both men argue from Scripture—that it makes me wonder why White was willing to do this joint work. It must be that White was confident in how Hunt’s arguments would look when challenged by someone who knew what they were talking about. The words of Thomas and Quinn succinctly describe this exchange: "This book . . . could go down as the most lopsided debate in church history. Once again, as in What Love is This? Dave Hunt neither understands true Calvinism nor correctly represents classic Arminianism" (David N. Steele, Curtis C. Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn, 2nd ed., The Five Points of Calvinism [Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing Company, [pp. 90-91]). "White has . . . answered the most egregious misrepresentation of Calvinism in print today." (Ibid., 114). In the end Hunt’s assault amounts to not much more than slinging pebbles at the Empire State Building. Once again, the Reformed position on salvation has come shining through, while the unbiblical assumptions of Arminianism are seen for what they are. White, representing the Reformed position, does a very good job of exposing weaknesses in Hunt’s arguments (which are multiplied many times over), and the fact that Hunt is not prepared at all to seriously interact with Scripture on the issue of salvation. Reading through Debating Calvinism turned into an exercise of self-control. More than a few times I was on the border of being upset because Hunt twists and distorts White arguments, and he ignores key passages, while at the same time accusing White of doing this. Many of his arguments are straw men. Hunt’s errors are far too numerous to list, and would take a full-length book to deal with, although some specific points about his presentation should be pointed out. For one thing, how he advances his case here is reminiscent of his previous writings: emotional language used to get a sympathetic reaction from the reader. White’s assessment of Hunt is consistent with what I noticed throughout the book: "shrill" (p. 319), "harsh" (p. 320), "ad hominem . . . emotional argumentation" (p. 323), and "special pleading" (p. 324). Hunt’s flair for the dramatic is found in much of his argumentation: "Something is radically amiss" (p. 47); "unbiblical and repugnant" (p. 48); "extreme view of sovereignty . . . borders on blasphemy" (p. 153); "libel against God" (p. 165); "Calvin’s callousness toward the lost is appalling!" (p. 222); "madness. . . . The very idea is offensive to our God-given conscience!" (p. 273); "This should shock every conscience as blaspheming the character of God . . . libel" (p. 280); "It borders on blasphemy" (p. 309); "Such callousness is chilling . . . breathtaking!" (p. 316); "horrific theory" (p. 333); "blasphemy" (p. 334); "Calvin libelously claimed" (p. 394); "To teach that He did libels God" (p. 397); "Any humane person would" (p. 423); etc., etc., etc. Hunt is not afraid to play on readers’ emotions. Or as White calls it: "emotional grandstanding" (p. 298). All these melodramatic outbursts do is show that his arguments are void of content, and are not as strong as he would like readers to believe. An old trick in debating is that if you really have nothing to say, yell it, and you will more likely be able to convince your audience. Further, rather than take up a few passages and in a thorough manner explain what they mean so as to build his case, he will often throw out a truckload of passages—without dealing with any in a comprehensive way—as if every passages supports his assertion, though he continually neglects context. See Hunt’s response on pages 75-81, as well as his response on pages 101-107 for examples of this. The undiscerning reader is likely to throw up their hands at the shear number of quotations/citations and assume that Hunt must be right. In fact, Hunt is often times all over the map. Whereas White offers focused presentations of Ephesians 1 (pp. 92-95), and John 6 (pp. 117-125), it is painfully clear that Hunt has no interest in interacting with White over the details of any one passage, and has resorted to a shotgun approach. That thought crossed my mind early on in the book, and then, ironically enough, this was the very point White made about Hunt on page 321, where he describes Hunt’s argumentation as "wide-ranging shotgun attempts." Not only does Hunt refuse to deal with the details of key passages, it is obvious that he is unprepared to do so. Look at his "Response" (pp. 101-107) to White’s explanation of Ephesians 1 in the previous section. What does Hunt actually say that discredit’s White’s argument? Not much. To cover up this weakness, Hunt makes broad, sweeping appeals to the rest of the Bible, as if these claims are sufficient evidence to prove his points. The following are examples of this: "scores of Scriptures" (p. 77); "the numerous Scriptures" (p. 79); "the scores of verses" (p. 87); "many passages state" (p. 101); "all of Scripture" (p. 104); "the Bible repeatedly says that. . . ." (p. 113); "Scores of Scriptures" (p. 114); "numerous Scriptures" (p. 128); "the entire Bible" (p. 131); "Hundreds of Scriptures. . . . The entire teaching of the Bible" (p. 132); "the overall emphasis of the Bible" (p. 140); "the numerous clear statements" (p. 155); "from Genesis to Revelation" (p. 158); "The entire Bible" (p. 159); "the numerous passages" (p. 181); "numerous Scriptures" (p. 181); "scores of Scriptures" (p. 185); "many times" (p. 193); "Scores of Scriptures" (p. 194); "the multitude of passages" (p. 209); "the numerous Scriptures. . . . the numerous Scriptures" (p. 210); "many others . . . scores of verses. . . . Many other Scriptures" (p. 211); "Scores of Old Testament texts" (p. 221); "many Scriptures" (p. 222); "literally hundreds of Scriptures" (p. 277); "the Bible repeatedly says" (p. 281); "Scripture repeatedly says the opposite" (p. 283); "scores of others" (p. 285); "hundreds of invitations . . . scores of Scriptures . . . many Scriptures" (p. 302); "a plethora of Scriptures" (p. 310); "hundreds of Scriptures" (p. 312); "Scripture repeatedly says" (p. 333); "clear from Genesis to Revelation" (p. 338); "hundreds of others" (p. 386); "Hundreds of Scriptures" (p. 424); "hundreds of Scriptures" (p. 425); "hundreds of verses . . . hundreds of verses" (p. 426). Hunt seems to have no problem overstating himself. These claims do nothing more for him than to demonstrate that he is weak on exegesis, and his own awareness of it forces him to use whatever means in order to bolster his position. When he should thoroughly deal with the verse in question itself, and then the immediate context, then branch out to the near context, and from there go to the broader picture of the Bible as a whole, he bypasses several critical steps, and goes right to: "This does not agree with what the Bible as a whole says." That type of statement begs the issue. What’s the point of discussing any one passage or verse, if the response is going to continually be: "I reject your position, because that’s not what the rest of the Bible says"? While Hunt’s response may sound good to some, it actually reveals his weakness as an exegete. And the fact of the matter, is that he is very limited in his ability to be a true exegete, because he neither knows Greek nor Hebrew, which means that he has to rely on the opinions of others (as well as his own), in order to determine what the Bible means by what it says. This may account for his outlandish handling of John 6 (pp. 127-33). Hunt typically makes little contribution—and often none at all—to the discussion of any specific passage under consideration. Another point should be made in regard to this. Because of Hunt’s shotgun approach, his tactic seems to be throwing out numerous challenges and charges, very many passages without context, and then, because White doesn’t deal with every point for lack of space, Hunt accuses him of avoiding points he has raised (e.g., "White dodges these many Scriptures" [p. 222]; "White evades the issue" [p. 253]; "In this chapter alone, I offer at least forty-five passages that clearly refute Calvinism. White responds to none of them" [p. 303]). The truth is that both writers were given a limited space in which to write. While Hunt doesn’t mind his own broad, disjointed approach, White has chosen to very selectively only respond to those things that are truly essential to the argument. If I were the one debating Hunt, this would have been my exact approach. Because of that, White is unable to interact with everything Hunt brings up. Hunt’s charge that White avoids his arguments is baseless, as any judicious reader can observe. This debate is not supposed to be about merely quoting Scripture—anything can be proved from the Bible with that method—it’s about thoroughly explaining key passages in order to support your view, which Hunt is exceptionally weak on. At times, Hunt is desperate enough to try to disprove White’s points, that he will go so far as to misrepresent White’s statements. For example, Hunt quotes White as saying: "White declares that the object of God’s foreknowledge ‘is always personal . . . never events’. . . " (pp. 156-57). Following that quote, Hunt says that White’s statement is false. However, the error was not White’s, but Hunt’s. He misquoted White. What White actually said had to do with the active verb for "foreknow" in Romans 8:28, and that is what he was talking about. In dealing specifically with that verb, he writes: ". . . we discover that three times in the New Testament God is said to ‘foreknow.’ And what is vitally important to understand is that in none of these passages does God know future events. That is, the word does not refer to looking into the future and observing events. The direct object of ‘foreknow’ when used of God is always personal. God foreknows the elect (Romans 8:29), His people (Romans 11:2), and Christ (1 Peter 1:20). These are all personal objects, never events" (p. 146 [The reader of this review should examine the entirety of White’s explanation to see how Hunt has misrepresented him.]). When I read Hunt’s "rephrasing" of what White had actually written, it left me speechless. For all his ad hominem attacks against the Reformers, so as to disqualify their teaching on salvation, how are we to view Mr. Hunt in light of such a gross distortion? What White wrote, and how Hunt represented him are not in any way similar. But it served Hunt’s purpose to twist White’s words. It seems that Hunt is not so much concerned with accuracy, as he is opposing a viewpoint which he adamantly hates. Of the many passages Hunt errs on, what he wrote about John 3:16 struck me the most. He claims that "whosoever" (p. 315) means anyone at all, contrary to what the Greek actually says. (See my article under "Misunderstood Texts" for an explanation of this verse.) I, along with others, have personally written Mr. Hunt and explained this verse to him. I also asked him to show me how there is any possible way his interpretation could be supported by the Greek. As of the writing of this review, Hunt has offered no solid grammatical explanation as an alternative to how Greek scholars say the passage should be translated. Even with knowing that Jesus could not possibly mean what Hunt presents him as saying, he still continues to make the same erroneous claims about this critical verse. Why? It would seem that the only reasonable explanation is that Hunt believes it helps to support his overall views. Proper interpretation seems of little concern to him. The same incorrect statement he made in What Love is This? is repeated here: "‘Whosoever believeth in him’ means whosoever" (p. 371). Mind boggling! And his claim that the Bible uses "whosoever" 183 times (p. 385) means absolutely nothing! It is irresponsible to lump all those verses together without regard for the context of each separate one. I am beside myself at the length to which Mr. Hunt has gone in order to support his views, especially when he can make the claim, "Those in John 3:16 ‘who believed were a select group’? No! Anyone could believe" (p. 389). To my knowledge, this goes against every Greek grammar that has discussed this passage. It certainly stands against the ones I showed him in my personal correspondence with him, which are the same ones I used for my explanation of this passage (again, see Misunderstood Texts). For anyone to be that committed to their preconceived beliefs, where they think their opinion is more reliable than men who have studied the language for decades, to me this smacks of pride. Because of the fact that Hunt has been corrected on this by myself, as well as others, I find his repeated claim of the statement that "whosoever means whosoever"—that is, anyone indiscriminately—unconscionable. His commitment to his view has caused him to override an honest acceptance of what the Bible says. Granted, even by his own admission Mr. Hunt knows nothing about Greek, but should this be an excuse when those who know the language have corrected him, and having been corrected, he continues to make what amounts to foolish, and even ignorant statements? I think not. At the heart of Hunt’s view is his belief in "free will." After having quoted numerous passages, again, neglecting context, the best argument he can muster up is to conclude that the invitations to unbelievers imply ability (p. 81); claiming further, that "God has given man a free will. That fact provides the only explanation for rampant wickedness" (p. 103). What fact? He certainly never demonstrates this from Scripture. His admission that this is "implied" proves that it is not a fact, but rather a hopeful assumption. He later adds: "Calvinism’s denial of God’s sovereign gift of free will to man reflects a failure to understand that love can’t force a heart response" (p. 275); and also this: "common sense and daily experience . . . tell us clearly that we make hundreds of choices every day" (p. 311); adding later: "daily experience proves" (p. 335). He has to resort to these kinds of arguments because he has not case, which he well knows. The problem with his statements on pages 311 and 335 is that choices we make "every day" have nothing to do with the so-called ability to "choose salvation." In spite of Hunt’s "implied ability," and his claim that free will is the only explanation for wickedness, one waits and waits for Hunt to provide a clear and comprehensive presentation to support that such a thing as "free will" even exists—that is, a will that is free in the Arminian sense: one that is not in total bondage to sin. To support his claim that man has a free will, Hunt refers to one irrelevant passage after another (e.g., p.140). Related to this is White’s statement that in Hunt’s defense of free will, he "goes beyond the positions held by Rome and comes dangerously close to Pelagianism" (p. 332), a charge that the reader never sees answered! All Hunt cares to say in his defense is that he is not Arminian (p. 412), and that he is offended at White’s statement that Hunt stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Rome (p. 416 [White’s comment is on page 414]). Hunt should not be offended by White pointing out the obvious. Since Hunt’s views on salvation are closely related to the Roman Catholic view, White had every right to say this.   Conclusion The negative of this book is that Dave Hunt does such a poor job in the debate, the reader never really gets a chance to see a good interchange between the Reformed and non-Reformed positions, which is what anyone picking up this work should hope for. How else are those new to the debate going to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. As it is, Mr. Hunt offers not much more than a running diatribe, with little to substantiate his opinions. A sad fact of the matter is that some will accept Hunt’s arguments because they have read his previous books. Another is that some will agree with him because this is what they already believe. And yet another is that some will be won over to Hunt’s perspective because of his emotional appeals. On the positive side, Mr. Hunt’s inability to seriously debate this issue makes White’s presentation of the Reformed view of salvation stand out all the more. We are thankful that White represented the Reformed position in such a solid way, and we are excited that this teaching is being presented to a "Christian" culture which is overwhelmingly Arminian.