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All the passages say is that those who come to Jesus are given by the Father, period. Whether the Father's criteria for bringing them to Jesus was predestination, free will, or a combination of the two, is not stated in the text, but Dr. White keeps insisting that it is only predestination. Again, he is reading into the text what he wants to see.

By selectively ignoring certain phrases, or simply denying that other phrases are relevant, Mr. Sungenis misses the entire thrust of Jesus' words, as we have seen repeatedly already.

(150) What phrases have I ignored? What phrases have I said are irrelevant? Instead of answering the challenge I wrote above, Dr. White tries to go on the offensive, but without any evidence. The point in fact remains. John 6 specifies neither predestination or free will. It simply teaches that all that come to Jesus are given by the Father. The criteria for the giving is not developed, except that it is in answer to the Jews' persistent unbelief (John 5:40) that I mentioned earlier.

JRWPrev: Instead, the Father's will is obviously well known to the Son. He is entrusted with God's elect, and His unlimited power and salvific ability explain His assertion in 6:37: not only will He never cast those who are given to Him by the Father out, but all who are given will come to Him, since He has the capacity to bring this about! If this were not the case, nothing in 6:39 would make any sense.

Again, Dr. White has inserted the word "elect" into the mix, and he has confused God's "unlimited power and salvific ability" with forcing people to believe apart from their free will.

Note the use of the term "force," a word that is, obviously, meaningless in this context. It makes as much sense as saying Jesus "forced" Lazarus from the tomb.

(151) I've dealt with Dr. White's theological euphemisms in an earlier paragraph.

This is an important point: the problem with Dr. White's theology is that in his attempt to save the sovereignty of God he inadvertently makes God unsovereign. In Dr. White's theology, the only way God can be sovereign is if He overpowers man into believing against his will. The Catholic God is much more sovereign than that, since the Catholic God is the one who remains sovereign and controls all the events of history with respect to, or in spite of, man's free will. As the Catholic Catechism says so aptly, "To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of 'predestination,' he includes in it each person's free response to his grace." (Para 600)."

And parallel railroad tracks "meet" in eternity, too, right? No, parallel railroad tracks, should they ever meet, will result in a train crash. Rome may use high-sounding words to attempt to mix the unmixable, but that doesn't make the result rational. Either God saves perfectly, or He reacts solely to the decisions of finite creatures. Every attempt to rob God of His freedom and subject Him to His creatures has failed, as this one does as well.

(152) There you have it. It is precisely what I have been contending. One of the main reasons Dr. White doesn't accept predestination working with free will is that he thinks they are an attempt to "mix the unmixable" and that such an attempt would not be "rational." For Dr. White only one can be true: "Either God saves perfectly, or He reacts solely to the decisions of finite creatures." To him, both cannot be true. This is where the human logic of the Calvinist system becomes their death-trap. In fact, Calvin's "logic" led him to only one conclusion: God is the author of sin. Anybody who is honest with Calvinism will eventually come to the same conclusion. And by the way, no, parallel lines do not meet in eternity.

JRWPrev: Mr. Sungenis says the perfect tense is not "crucial" to the passage. Then why does he later lay weight upon the present tense of the same verb, if the verb tenses are not crucial? (Mr. Windsor said on the program that discussing these issues was really irrelevant anyway. Mr. Sungenis seems to disagree).

This is an attempt by Dr. White's to 'damn if you do and damn if you don't.' I am alert to such Catch 22 ploys, since I have been debating for quite a while now. Be that as it may, the only reason I brought up the present tense of DIDWMI in John 6:37 is because Dr. White tried to make an issue of the perfect tense of DIDWMI in John 6:39. His claim was that the perfect tense denotes predestination. If that is the case, then my question was what does he do with the present tense of DIDWMI in John 6:37? If his thesis about the perfect tense in John 6:39 were correct, wouldn't that mean that the present tense in John 6:37 would say something opposite?? Yet you don't find Dr. White making a case for the present tense of John 6:37 like he does for the perfect of John 6:39. Obviously, in his frame of mind about the purpose of Greek tenses, John 6:37 doesn't help his case, so he ignores it. He thought that Scott Windsor, who doesn't know the Greek, wouldn't catch this little inconsistency. That is why Scott contacted me, and that is why I am telling what I am."

Those who have now read all the material to this point are undoubtedly amazed at what was just said. To say I "ignore" John 6:37, when I brought it out in TPF, and in my previous response, and discussed it fully, is amazing indeed.

(153) We are not debating TPF here. Regarding the above incident, I was only debating what Dr. White wrote to Scott Windsor. In that exchange Dr. White did not a give an explanation of the present tense of DIDWMI in John 6:37.

Further, I simply pointed out the inconsistency in Mr. Sungenis' assertion: if the perfect is irrelevant, the present would be too, would it not? Surely Mr. Sungenis has approached this passage in a significantly different way that [sic] Mr. Windsor did. Mr. Windsor eschewed any discussion of the grammar of the text as irrelevant. Such a viewpoint would render a large portion of Mr. Sungenis' books irrelevant as well, but Mr. Sungenis seems hesitant to point out Mr. Windsor's errors at this point. Finally, again, I raised the perfect tense in the context of Mr. Windsor's assertion that men are given to the Son at the final judgment, after they have come to Christ. Mr. Sungenis has said that "of course" the giving precedes the coming, but it is based upon foreseen faith.

(154) Apparently, Dr. White is so used to battling straw men of his own choosing that he comes to believe that what he opined about someone's belief is actually true. Above Dr. White states: "Mr. Sungenis has said that "of course" the giving precedes the coming, but it is based upon foreseen faith." I have NEVER said that in this exchange. You won't find the words "foreseen faith." in all the 100 pages I wrote, except to deny the claim.

So, Mr. Sungenis disagrees with Mr. Windsor.

JRWPrev: The perfect tense tells us that the Son has already been given, at the time of the speaking of these words, a people. Mr. Sungenis neglects to note the use of the neuter pa'n as the object of what has been given to the Son. As I pointed out in my exegesis, it is a people, a whole, that has been entrusted to the Son. [We will see this helps us to see the consistency of the use of the present tense in 6:37 below as well.] This people is defined by God's act of giving, not by any human act of "free will."

Pay attention, this is important. This is where Dr. White has totally misconstrued the meaning of the Greek perfect tense. Dr. White is trying to use the perfect tense ("has given") to prove that, prior to the words spoken to the Jews in John 6, the sum total of people who would come to Jesus had already been given to Jesus prior to the discourse in John 6, and for that matter, prior to any event in history. Note well: the perfect tense in Greek does no such thing. Again, let me state, the ONLY thing the Greek perfect tense does in John 6:39 is tell us that the action of the Father's giving precedes the action of "lose nothing" and "raise it up on the last day." The "giving" may occur in the past, the present or in the future, but whenever it occurs it will be before the "lose nothing" and the "raise it up on the last day." That is all the verse is saying. To claim that the perfect tense is saying that all the people in view, prior to the events in John 6, have already been given is a total distortion of the text. There is simply no referent for the perfect tense that confines its beginning to the primordial past. If such a referent IS there, I challenge Dr. White to show us where it is.

Let's think about it a moment. "It is the boss' will that of all the accounts that have been given to you, Mr. Jones, you lose none of them, but cause them to increase in sales." Is there anyone who would for a moment suggest that what is actually being said here is that these accounts will be given to Mr. Jones at a future point? Remember, Jesus is identifying the Father's will for Him. Is Mr. Sungenis suggesting that the Father's will for the Son was unknown to the Son prior to the Incarnation, for example? If the will was, in fact, known, then does it not follow inevitably that the action of "giving" here carries its normal sense? The perfect tense, especially when used in speech, refers normally to a completed action in the past with abiding results to the present. Upon what principle---contextual or grammatical---does Mr. Sungenis suggest the possibility that we should translate the passage so that it allows for, "of all that shall be given to Me"?

(155) Dr. White still hasn't proven his contention. Let's say that the boss still has accounts to give to Mr. Jones. In fact, the boss will be giving accounts to Mr. Jones until the day the boss' firm goes out of business, which we'll call "the last day." In this case, we can still say, "It is the boss' will that of all the accounts that have been given to you, Mr. Jones, you lose none of them, but turn them in on the last day." (Notice I had to change the last clause to keep it in conformity to the stipulations in John 6:39, and that Dr. White's clause "but cause them to increase in sales" favors the placement of the perfect tense to his own perspective). It is easy to see how the perfect tense ("have been given to you") can change its time reference based on the time referent in which it is placed. If "have been given" is placed in a time-frame that begins in the past but transpires for a long period of time, then obviously we cannot confine it to a one-time act in the past. This is because verb tenses are not independent entities in themselves. They are subject to the other tenses and thoughts that are in the verse they are placed, and in the context of the verses surrounding them. This is especially true, since Jesus, in John 6:37, uses the present tense instead of the perfect tense in John 6:39, showing that the perfect tense in John 6:39 is not absolute by any means. Thus, this is why I keep saying that Dr. White is abusing the perfect tense of the Greek in order to support his Calvinistic beliefs. He cannot prove that it is being used in the way he is claiming that it is being used. End

Next, Mr. Sungenis continues to ignore the original context in which I raised this issue, but even in these comments, he refutes Windsor's suggestion that the giving takes place at the last day. To assert that my comments were in error but not to admit that my comments were perfectly correct in the context originally given is an obvious error. So, Mr. Sungenis is simply in error to say that the ONLY thing communicated by the use of the perfect tense is that the action of giving by the Father precedes "not losing" and "raising up." This can be seen so easily that it is startling that someone of Mr. Sungenis' education could miss it: replace the perfect with a present. The present tense action would still precede the future tense "not lose." So is Mr. Sungenis seriously suggesting that the present and perfect are interchangeable? Is this how one does Greek exegesis?

(156) With my explanation above, we can see that the issue is a little wider than that which Dr. White has confined us. In fact, we can now see that the present tense of John 6:37 fits right in with the perfect tense of John 6:39, IF we understand that the perfect tense of John 6:39 is not confined to the distant past. This is why: since the present tense of John 6:37 represents an ongoing action with no limit to where it stops except the last day, then the perfect tense of John 6:39, which, as I proposed above, is not confined to the distant past but includes all those given right up until the last day, then it too represents an ongoing action by the Father. That is also why the participle in John 6:40 are present tense participles, since they represent the ongoing action of people "beholding and believing" right up until the last day when all will be raised.

Or do we recognize, as I have pointed out in my exegesis, the consistency of all of the text? That the present tense in 6:37 is associated with the personal pronoun and the personal coming of the believers as individuals;

(157) That may or may not be true. Present tenses are not confined to personal referents. In fact, if Dr. White's thesis is correct, we would have to ask the fair question: why does Jesus make a distinction between the "All" of John 6:37 and "the one" of John 6:37, if, as Dr. White contends, the "All" will "infallibly" come to Jesus? Why personalize it by using "the one" if it is a foregone conclusion that the "All" will come? Moreover, the Greek could have said, using the aorist or perfect tense "and the one who has come to Me I will certainly not cast out," and mean virtually the same thing as the present tense "and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out." All this is trying to point out is that the tenses are not the deciding factor here, despite what Dr. White is trying to impose on them. Greek verbal tenses are not little wax noses that we can mold any way we want. And this is the extreme danger when someone knows a little Greek. He thinks that because there is a general rule that Greek perfect tenses refer to a previous act which has effects in the future that this means that such a tense, when used of God's action, refers to the primordial act of predestination without free will. But that assumption is simply a theological imposition on the Greek, not a grammatical analysis at all.

that 6:38-39 backs away from that present-tense, "in the now" situation and provides the background, the reason for the assertion of 6:37; that it does so by switching to the neuter singular pronoun so as to bring the entire people of God into view as a singular whole (the common use of the neuter singular)

(158) As I said before, if John 6:39's sole purpose was to give the reason for the formula in John 6:37, then it would most likely be preceded by a Greek HOTI clause, or some other Greek indicator, that Jesus was making such a connection. As it stands, the connection of verse 39 as the "reason" for verse 37 is merely the opinion of Dr. White without any proof.

and by moving to the perfect tense verb, "has given," and then the future tense "will not lose" and "will raise up," setting up the contrast between the completed expression of the Father's will in eternity past (the very time frame provided for the same action in Ephesians 1 and Romans 8) and the future fulfillment of the entire work of redemption. [Note: "will not lose" can also be interpreted as an aorist subjunctive, but such would not impact the point being made in light of the use of the future "raise up".] The charge of "distortion" is best directed at Mr. Sungenis for gutting the text of its meaning so as to safeguard Roman tradition.

(159) No, I am being fair with the text. I am not going to make the text say anything more than it says. It is Dr. White's contention that "has given" is connected only to the primordial past. The text doesn't give us any such referent. The focus of the text is that because the Father gives then they will come. This applies to the situation with the Jews because, from everything we read in the NT, God is ceasing His giving them to Jesus, and He is turning to the Gentiles.

JRWPrev: The perfect tense points to a completed action. Mr. Sungenis says that we cannot tell when this action took place. That is quite true, but we can surely determine that it took place prior to other actions. It took place prior to the coming of anyone to Christ; and it takes place prior to Jesus' action of "not losing" those who are given to Him.

I would have to say that the reason Dr. White is admitting to this is that I pointed it out to him, for it surely wasn't admitted in his radio program or the subsequent Internet debate he had with Scott Windsor.

Basic facts are not "admitted." Nothing I have written on this subject is contradicted by basic facts. Mr. Sungenis' reading is so unusual, and so a-contextual, that responding to it does at times require one to go over things so basic that they otherwise would not require attention.

JRWPrev: I certainly do believe that this giving took place in eternity past: but as I said on the program, I prove that by direct reference to such passages as Romans 8:29-30 and Ephesians 1:3-11.

But we are not interested in what Dr. White "believes" to be true. At this juncture, we are only interested in what the grammar of John 6:37-39 allows us to say, since Dr. White attempted to use the Greek grammar to support predestination and deny free will.

No, I used Greek grammar to refute Mr. Windsor's false assertion that men are given to Christ at the final judgment, not before.

If Dr. White wants to deal with Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 at some other time, I will be glad to oblige. In fact, I think Dr. White and I should have a formal debate on this very topic, since he believes this issue is the real dividing line between our two faiths, and the faith of a man such as Norman Geisler.

Of course..and this interchange has surely shown the vast differences between us.

(160) Is that an agreement to debate or a refusal to debate?

JRWPrev: The key in John 6 is that the giving results in the actions of coming and believing.

No, the "giving" of John 6:37 results only in the "coming" not in "believing."

As a brief review of the text bears out, the two are synonymous in John's gospel, and in this passage as well. Think about it just a moment: one can come without faith?!

I agree, but John 6:37 does not say that. It only says that the giving results in coming. The reason faith becomes an issue is that we don't know when the faith occurred, before, during or after the giving.

John 6:37 does not even mention belief. When the issue of "believing" is added to the mix in John 6:40, the formula changes somewhat. In John 6:40, those that "perceive" and "believe" do so in the Greek active voice, which denotes an action of their wills, an action that is not included in John 6:37. The only actions in John 6:37 are those between the Father and the Son. In John 6:40, however, there are three actions: the Father's will, the person's volitional belief, and the Son's raising them on the last day.

We see again the atomistic, a-contextual methodology employed by Mr. Sungenis. We have already refuted each element of this section in the previous material. However, it is hard not to stand in simple amazement at Mr. Sungenis' inability to see the relationship of "coming" and "believing," as if they are separate things! All one has to do is read 6:35 to see the error of such thinking: "Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.'" Given Mr. Sungenis' position, the one who comes to Christ and the one who believes in Christ are different people! Surely that is not the case! Instead, the careful exegete sees that there is no coming that is not in faith; and no faith that does not involve coming to Christ. The two are synonymous terms in this passage, so to make the distinction Mr. Sungenis does is simply incredible.

(161) I will simply reiterate what I wrote above: "...John 6:37 does not say that. It only says that the giving results in coming. The reason faith becomes an issue is that we don't know when the faith occurred, before, during or after the giving."

JRWPrev: So in summary, the perfect tense is surely very important: it not only refutes the erroneous application Mr. Windsor made (and which Mr. Sungenis did not repeat---we truly wonder what he thought of it), but it does communicate to us vital information concerning the absolute freedom of God in giving a people unto the Son. The people of God have been given to the Son. What a tremendous truth!

Yes, what a tremendous truth it is that the people of God have been given to the Son. If it weren't for the Father's drawing grace and mercy, none of us would have a chance of salvation, whether it be by predestination or free will.

"Chance of salvation" vs. "a perfect Savior who does the will of the Father without fail." The contrast is striking.

(162) You see how Dr. White keeps confusing Christ's perfection with man's salvation? Can Dr. White provide just one verse where Christ's perfection is tied to whether some are saved or lost? No. In fact, 2 Timothy 2:12-13 says just the opposite. It says that Christ cannot deny Himself (which is the same thing as remaining perfect). According to 2 Tim 2:13, how does He do so? By remaining faithful even if we are faithless. How did we become faithless? 2 Tim 2:12 tells us: by denying him. If we deny Him, then He must deny us. If He doesn't deny us when we deny Him then He will be imperfect, because His nature demands that He deny us if He is denied. Who is it that can deny Jesus? 2 Tim 2:10 tells us. It is the "elect." These verses overturn almost every tenet of Calvinism. But what did Dr. White do when I brought up these verses. He said they were "irrelevant."

JRWPrev: John 6:40 indicates that man actively believes. The single most common means of attempting to get around the meaning of John 6:37-39, which so strongly precludes the insertion of human will and effort into the sovereign work of salvation, is to literally turn the text on its head and read it backwards. That is, rather than following the natural progression of thought, from the topic of unbelief in 6:35, through the assertion of v. 37, into the will of the Father in 38-39, and then into verse 40, they start with an a-contextual interpretation of 6:40, and then insist that the preceding verses cannot bear their natural meaning because of their assumed, but undefended (and indefensible) interpretation of that one verse.

As I have shown above repeatedly, we are doing no such thing. What is happening between John 6:37-39 and John 6:40 is that Dr. White has already presumed that the perfect tense of John 6:39 teaches predestination. Thus, anything anyone says to him about the sequential verses will mean that Dr. White will invariably discount them by using his pre-interpretation of John 6:39. But once Dr. White sees (and I truly hope he does) that John 6:39 is not saying what he thinks its saying, then perhaps he will be open to a more fair reading of John 6:40, or even of John 5:40.

Which is no defense of turning the text on its head. Each of these issues has been thoroughly addressed above.

JRWPrev: There is no doubt on anyone's part that 6:40 clearly presents man as active and believing. That is not even relevant to the debate, since no one is asserting that man does not believe in Christ as an active agent. Note the plain assertion of the text: "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day." The "free will" argument is clear: "beholds" and "believes" are active verbs. Men behold the Son, men believe in the Son. Hence, it is argued, this act of beholding and believing forms the basis upon which God elects. Such an explanation takes a partial truth (the elect surely come to Christ, behold Christ, believe in Christ) and turns it upside down in clear violation of the text. The careful reader, however, will note that 6:40 follows 6:35-39. Hence, if the flow of thought means anything, we already have the identity of those who will come, behold, and believe, established in these preceding verses. Remembering that Jesus is explaining the unbelief of those who have seen Him work miracles, we have the identification of those who do come to Christ as those who are given to the Son by the Father (6:37); the same ones who will be infallibly raised up by the Son as per the Father's will (6:38-39). We have already been told in 6:37 that those the Father gives to the Son come to the Son: coming is active. Believers believe. Saving faith is a gift of God, given to His elect people.

(163) Flow of thought is important, but if the issues in the initial flow are distorted, then what do you think is going to become of the issues in the latter flow?

Without repeating myself, let me refer the reader to my above remarks. If I have missed anything, please bring it to my attention and I will address it. Yes, the outline just provided in my comments has been thoroughly defended in the previous materials. It is simply my hope that the reader has as clear a grasp of the context and flow as possible.

JRWPrev: So it is completely true that every believer believes, every believer comes to Christ. But the wonder of the passage is that every single one given by the Father to the Son, all, without exception, look to Christ in faith and receive eternal life. It is a gross misuse of the passage to turn it into a proof-text for "free will" by removing it from its context and turning it backwards.

Now, here is where this issue gets a little confusing for some. On the one hand, we can agree with Dr. White's statement that "it is completely true that every believer believes, every believer comes to Christ. But the wonder of the passage is that every single one given by the Father to the Son, all, without exception, look to Christ in faith and receive eternal life." Believers believe; they come to Christ; every one given by the Father without exception, and they receive eternal life. Am I, Robert Sungenis, throwing in the towel? Not quite. First, the above statement doesn't deny free will. If Dr. White had said, "believers believe without recourse to their free will, such that God imposes belief on them against their will," then, of course, I would object. Second, the above statement doesn't tell us anything about whether those who believe and receive eternal life keep on believing and actually enter into heaven. One can believe but then fall from belief. One can be given eternal life but could later forfeit eternal life for disobedience. That is why Scripture speaks about "losing the inheritance," if we fall away. Many of the passages in Hebrews that I cited above state that very thing."

Such provides a good summary of how Rome's over-riding theology destroys meaningful exegesis. We have seen how clearly the text speaks of God's giving resulting in the coming in faith of the elect; we have seen the Father's will for the Son so that the Son loses none who are given to Him;

(164) Such provides a good example of Dr. White's continual ignoring of the book of Hebrews -- the book that speaks about falling from the faith in 51% of its contents. And Of course, God's giving results in the coming, but the problem here is the Father's "will." Dr. White hasn't proved his understanding of that will.

we have seen that there is no such thing as person who comes to Christ in faith without the drawing of the Father, and that the Son raises up all those who are drawn (6:44). And yet, despite all of this, due to an external, allegedly infallible source (and I just note in passing, Rome has never infallibly interpreted this passage, hence, all of the comments Mr. Sungenis has provided are his own private interpretation, from the Roman viewpoint), these truths are subsumed and, I believe, ultimately denied.

(165) Not quite. Those who come will be raised on the last day. But if they fall away in disbelief then they have ceased to come. That is why 2 Tim 2:10-13 says what it does, about the very "elect" Dr. White keeps inserting into John 6.

JRWPrev: Such is very much like those who read the words of Jesus in John 8:47: "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God," and hear it saying the opposite if what it actually says. When tradition is allowed to over-ride the text, people hear the text saying the opposite of what it really says: they hear it say, "the reason you do not belong to God is because you refuse to hear," rather than what it actually says, the reason they do not hear is because the pre-existing condition which allows them to hear, that of belonging to God (being of the elect, being one of Christ's sheep) is not present.

Contrary to what Dr. White is proposing, I take the words "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God" just as they are. The verse does not say "the reason you do not belong to God is because you refuse to hear," so I wouldn't venture to make it say that. But the question remains whether Dr. White himself has understood John 8:47, or is he trying to make more out of the verse than what is actually there, just as he did with John 6:37-39? I am sorry to say that the latter is the case. I agree that only those who are "of God" are going to listen to God's words. But that does not tell me HOW these people came to be "of God" (ie., whether by predestination, free will, or a combination of the two). Dr. White is assuming that they became "of God" only be an eternal decree in the distant past that bypassed their free will. Again, every time he is faced with a passage that speaks of God being involved in the salvation process, Dr. White invariably interprets this to mean that God has predestined the recipients without regard to their free will. Why does he do this? Because his theological system forces him to do so.

Another incredible example. Think about what is being said. How could these men, by an act of "free will," embrace the message when they cannot hear it? The point of the passage is that 1) men lack a fundamental ability due to sin, and 2) God is the one who chooses who belongs to Him and who does not. The same is true of the matter of Christ's "sheep" in John 10. The Shepherd chooses the sheep, not the sheep the Shepherd. The Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, and then tells the Pharisees that they are not His sheep! The synergist who grounds salvation upon the final decision of the grace-aided will of man simply cannot avoid the logical conclusion of their system, which involves the reversal of these passages.

(166) Yes, think about what is being said: (1) "men lack a fundamental ability due to sin," and (2) "God is the one who chooses who belongs to Him and who does not." This means that God, with no thought of any criteria beyond His arbitrary choice, decides who is saved and who is damned. Ergo, God predestined certain men to Hell just because He wanted to send them there. Why? Because He has to show how great He is in condemning sin, yet of people of whom He has given no power to get out of that sin. Dr. White's God can lie. He can demand repentance but never, for all eternity, give someone the power to repent. That's the God, or should I say god, of Dr. White. Yes, really think about what is being said.

JRWPrev: So too, here in John 6, while verse 40 is surrounded by the testimony of God's sovereignty (6:37-39, 44?45, 65, etc.), those who exalt man's will due to their traditions refuse to listen and understand.

Here is another problem in Dr. White's exegesis: he puts verses of Scripture at odds with other verses of Scripture, and then he decides which set of verses he is going to let hold more weight.

Such is utterly untrue. The passage is a whole. The reader has seen clearly that only one side can offer a consistent, textually-based interpretation of the text. There has been no pitting of texts against each other at all.

(167) I am constantly amazed at what Dr. White thinks the reader has "seen clearly." Why doesn't he just let the reader decide what he "sees clearly," instead of implying that if he doesn't see it Dr. White's way then something is wrong with his thinking process.

Above, he has pitted John 6:40 against John 6:37-39, 44-45; 65, as if the final decision is going to be based on a head-count of verses.

Such is again obviously untrue. I have provided a consistent interpretation of John 6:40 in the context of its appearance, rather than what Mr. Sungenis has done, which isolates the passage from what comes before and after. This is the difference between my offered exegesis, and Mr. Sungenis' eisegetical response.

(168) I submit that Dr. White doesn't know what the "context of its appearance" is, since he has missed the real point of John 6, which is to tell the Jews that God is finally rejecting them (except for the remnant) for their centuries of unbelief (cf., Atcs 13:46-48; 15:15-18; Zech 1:3; Ezk 33:11). If one doesn't catch this theme, then he will be tempted to see passages like John 6:37, 39, 44, 65 as proof texts for absolute Predestination because he presumes that the Jews of John 6 represent everyone in the world. But that is a false conclusion. The Jews in John 6 are the Jews in John 6. They had the opportunity to repent but spurned it. Therefore they are cut off without a chance for repentance, just as Hebrews 6:4-6 warns of those in the NT who do the same thing (cf., Romans 11:22; Hebrew 3-4; 1 Cor 10:1-12).

What makes him do this? Sorry to say, but it is his "tradition" of Calvinism that makes such demands on him. Conversely, the Catholic position says, "let's take all the verse together, not make one stronger than the other, and make a conclusion that is fair to all of Scripture." In doing so, the Catholic Church sees both God's sovereignty and man's free will, not only in John 6, but in the whole Bible. I only wish Dr. White would be as fair with Scripture. I believe we can see who has been fair and who has not.

JRWPrev: The answer is not difficult to see. John 6:37 speaks of the person coming to Christ in faith. All that the Father is giving Him, as a result of being given, will come (future tense) to Him. This fits perfectly with John 6:44, where the Father is actively (and effectively, without failure), drawing those He has given to the Son to Christ.

This kind of exegesis shows precisely the danger inherent in using Greek with no boundaries. One can just rearrange the pieces, snip a little here, bend a little there, and presto, we have Greek grammar that conveniently supports the doctrine we wish to propose, in this case, Calvinism, and no other will be allowed, says Dr. White.

I believe we have already documented that it is Mr. Sungenis who engages in this kind of activity, not I.

(169) I refer the reader to the discussion of the perfect tense of John 6:39 I mentioned earlier. That is a sufficient example of the distortion I am talking about.

First of all, John 6:44 does not get into the issue of failure or success. All it says is that whoever comes to Jesus has to be first drawn by the Father. It is a simple cause and effect relationship. It doesn't tell us whether the person who came was predestined; used his free will; stays indefinitely once he comes; or any other detail about salvation.

Please note the above refutation of Mr. Sungenis on this passage, and how it was he who has given us a tremendous example of 1) ignoring the text as it stands, and 2) only citing a portion of it, not seeing the relationship the skipped part bears to the rest. The reader is strongly encouraged to consider well how Mr. Sungenis constantly says, "All it says is..." while then ignoring major elements of the text.

(170) Notice how Dr. White keeps claiming that I "skipped" some passages. I don't know of any I haven't addressed that Dr. White has brought up. Just because I disagree with Dr. White's exegesis, he claims that I have "skipped" over something.

John 6:44 says much more than "whoever comes to Jesus has to be first drawn by the Father." The reason Mr. Sungenis is blind to the rest can be found in one simple word: tradition.

(171) I don't remember once mentioning Catholic tradition in this or my previous rebuttal. I think Dr. White has developed another syndrome - - the "Tradition syndrome": When a Catholic offers exegesis that doesn't agree with his exegesis then it is obvious the Catholic is going by Catholic tradition. But I think it is obvious in this rebuttal and my previous rebuttal that I have stuck with Scripture: the grammar, the context, related passages, biblical themes, etc. I leave it to Dr. White to show where I have relied on tradition.

Second, John 6:37 does not say that the effect of "giving" is due to the cause of being "given," regardless if there is any truth to that relationship. If it were saying such, then the verse would read: "Because of all the Father has given to Me, then all the Father gives to Me shall come to Me."

What? Such doesn't even make sense. The action of giving precedes the action of coming; the combination of the verbal element and the assertion that all who are so given come, starts the chain of truths that Mr. Sungenis just can't escape: that the giving of the Father is free. He has to prove it is synergistic, not free, and he has not even made the first attempt to do so from this text. Such is simply impossible to do.

But John 6:37 contains no Greek HOTI clause that connects its outcome with the proposition in John 6:39. They are two independent verses giving two different perspectives on the same event. The "giving" of John 6:37 looks at it from the perspective of history wherein each century is providing a group of people who come to Jesus. John 6:39 looks at it from the perspective of the final consummation, wherein all those that have finally been "given" will be raised on the last day. That's all the verses are saying.

We would challenge Mr. Sungenis to explain to us how he places 6:39 solely in the future. We have already seen his error regarding the perfect tense verb in this passage.

(172) I refer the reader to the previous analysis I gave of John 6:39 in rebuttal to Dr. White's assertions. Here it is again: "Dr. White still hasn't proven his contention. Let's say that the boss still has accounts to give to Mr. Jones. In fact, the boss will be giving accounts to Mr. Jones until the day the boss' firm goes out of business, which we'll call "the last day." In this case, we can still say, "It is the boss' will that of all the accounts that have been given to you, Mr. Jones, you lose none of them, but turn them in on the last day." (Notice I had to change the last clause to keep it in conformity to the stipulations in John 6:39, and that Dr. White's clause "but cause them to increase in sales" favors the placement of the perfect tense to his own perspective). It is easy to see how the perfect tense ("have been given to you") can change its time reference based on the time referent in which it is placed. If "have been given" is placed in a time-frame that begins in the past but transpires for a long period of time, then obviously we cannot confine it to a one-time act in the past. This is because verb tenses are not independent entities in themselves. They are subject to the other tenses and thoughts that are in the verse they are placed, and in the context of the verses surrounding them. This is especially true, since Jesus, in John 6:37, uses the present tense instead of the perfect tense in John 6:39, showing that the perfect tense in John 6:39 is not absolute by any means. Thus, this is why I keep saying that Dr. White is abusing the perfect tense of the Greek in order to support his Calvinistic beliefs. He cannot prove that it is being used in the way he is claiming that it is being used.

JRWPrev: Sungenis' point, however, is fully refuted by simply thinking about the use of the present in context. In John 6:37, the present tense giving results in the future tense coming. Sungenis' idea is that our "free will" decision predicates and informs the "giving" of the Father, so that it is our choice that determines the Father's choice. But the text refutes this clearly.

Not only does the text refute it, but I refute it. I have never said that the "'free will' decision predicates and informs the 'giving' of the Father, so that it is our choice that determines the Father's choice." Rather, I have made two things very clear: 1) that the Father's choice works with our choice, and 2) that Dr. White's theology egregiously dismisses free will from John 6 based on a presupposition in his Calvinistic theology.

We have already seen, over and over again, that Mr. Sungenis is presenting synergism, and he does insert free will into the passage, so that man's decision determines God's decision. Such is truly beyond question by this point, and the reason why he would wish to contradict himself is difficult to understand.

(173) Its one thing to disagree with me, but I would recommend that Dr. White not keep claiming that I am saying something when I have denied I am saying it. Above, Dr. White said, "so that man's decision determines God's decision." In the preceding paragraph I said: "that the Father's choice works with our choice." Notice I did not say that man's choice determines God's choice, but that the Father's choice works with our choice. They are completely different truths, yet Dr. White refuses to recognize that distinction, since obviously he would rather battle an opponent of his own making.

JRWPrev: Those who will come will do so not out of some mythological "free will" but due to the gracious work of the Father wherein He will draw them to the Son: and the Father performs this miracle of grace only in the lives of those He gives to the Son.

I think the above statement by Dr. White proves my point. Notice how he satirizes free will as being "mythological." That's because his mentor, John Calvin, despite any verse of Scripture that suggested otherwise, determined there could be no free will.

Please note: Mr. Sungenis has never provided a verse that uses the phrase "free will," yet, he assumes it so basically, he can say that Calvin never produced a verse that denied what he only assumes. The circularity is glaring.

(174) Again, Systematic Theology 101 will allow me to use synonyms and related concepts to free will rather than confine me to the literal words "free will," just as we use the word "Trinity," though it is not found in the Bible. One such related concept is in 2 Tim 2:12: "If we deny him he will also deny us." But remember, Dr. White said this verse was irrelevant to the discussion in John 6, even though Paul uses the word "elect" in 2 Tim 2:10.

Any verse that taught free will was either subsumed under predestination or interpreted to say that it only seemed as if men had free will, since behind such statements God was secretly setting them up for a fall so he could eventually condemn them for not repenting. If you want to see the contortions he had to go through to arrive at such a position, I suggest you read pp. 457-472; 554-570 of Not By Faith Alone.

And I suggest you read The Potter's Freedom.

JRWPrev: Now, it seems Mr. Sungenis is insisting that the present tense here must be emphasizing an on-going action (though, for some reason, the normal meaning of the perfect is said to be less than definitional in 6:39), which while possible, is not the most logical syntactical choice.

This is simply not true. Check the record and you will find that I do not press the "ongoing" nature of the present tense of John 6:37.

OK, here is the record. Mr. Sungenis said: "Also, the verb "give" in John 6:37 ("All that the Father gives to me will come to me") is a Greek present tense, not a perfect, which shows that the action of "giving" is occurring presently, and is not confined to whatever White conceives the perfect tense of 6:39 to be saying."

It certainly seems that he said, ".which shows that the action of 'giving' is occurring presently.."

(175) I said I did not "PRESS" the issue of the present tense in John 6:37, not that I did not mention the present tense and its meaning. As anyone can tell from my debate thus far, I don't put a whole lot of weight on Greek tenses, since I know they are not absolute determiners of the meaning of the text. Greek is much too vast and complex for me to put such exegetical weight on one tense, especially at the expense of other tenses in the context. What I object to is people like Dr. White trying to confine the Greek tense of a verb to one meaning, and one meaning only, and it just so happens that the meaning he assigns to it is the one that agrees with his theology. How convenient.

I simply mentioned the present tense to counterbalance the inordinate use of the perfect tense by Dr. White in John 6:39. I said that 1) it was wrong for Dr. White to make the perfect tense of John 6:39 refer to some primordial decision of God's in the distant past irrespective of man's free will, since the verse did not specify such a referent;

And I did so in the context of Mr. Windsor's errant assertion that the giving takes place at the last day, a point that has been fully established; as to the consistency of seeing this giving as the same referred to in Ephesians 1:3-11, let the reader decide.

(176) Whether Mr. Windsor's interpretation is correct or not is not at issue between Dr. White and I. I am attacking Dr. White's application of the perfect tense in John 6:39, irrespective of what Mr. Windsor thinks it to be.

2) regarding the perfect tense one can only say that its definitive action precedes the action of the main verb;

and What? Such makes no sense. What if the only verb in a sentence is a perfect tense, and is the main verb? The perfect speaks of past, completed action with abiding results in the present.

(177) Dr. White is proving my point about the danger of misapplying the Greek. Above, he did exactly what I said he did. He assumed that because perfect tenses speak of a previous action that has abiding results, he feels he has the right to assign the past to an election decree before the world was created. But as we noted in the very example Dr. White gave of the boss and Mr. Jones, it all depends on which time reference is chosen for the perfect tense, which is only determined by the other verbs in the sentence, or the context of the passage.

3) that the verse does not specify the starting point for the perfect tense.

But it does preclude the application Mr. Windsor made of it!

JRWPrev: In fact, given his position, Sungenis would have to assert a kind of "iterative present" understanding of this present tense verb, since the action of "giving" would be dependent upon the free-will actions of men.

For those who are not familiar with such terms, "iterative" refers to something that repeats. With that, I don't know how Dr. White is applying it. Nevertheless, Dr. White has continually misrepresented the Catholic position by insisting that we are only interested in the "free will" angle of things. Let me make it clear that we are interested in both predestination and free will. Both of those aspects are working in John 6, as I have stated iteratively.

There is no predestination in synergism. Such is an oxymoron.

(178) Its an oxymoron for Dr. White because he thinks it is a logical impossibility for predestination to coincide with Free Will. That is where the "logic" of the Calvinist system traps them in the abyss of no return.

JRWPrev: This makes the future action of coming determine the present action of giving, just the opposite of what the text indicates.

Obviously, since Dr. White has misunderstood the Catholic position, his statement above is also incorrect, both grammatically and theologically.

Mr. Sungenis has not demonstrated an error in understanding Rome's position: if our free will choice is necessary, then God's predestination is limited to merely offering a plan, not choosing a people.

(179) No, its not limited, because we don't claim to know how they work together. God's predestination plan in the Catholic theology is just as real and potent as that of which Dr. White claims for his own theology. It is not just a "plan," it is a choosing, but it is a choosing that includes man's free will.

Secondly, there is nothing grammatically wrong with the sentence when one remembers that I am making reference to the terms in the text under discussion.

(180) ???

JRWPrev: Instead, the fact that this present tense is used in tandem with a future tense (gives/will come) throws the emphasis upon the timing of the action into the future, hence the normative translation "All that the Father gives me" (NASB, NIV, KJV "giveth", NRSV) rather than the unusual "All that the Father is giving me.." While not fully a "gnomic" present, surely it exists in the same general area, stating a general truth of the Father's giving of a people to the Son, and the emphasis lies squarely upon the result of that giving, the coming of the elect to Christ.

Obviously, I would have no problem with the grammar of John 6:37, since I am not out to distort the grammar, whatever it may be. What I am opposed to is Dr. White's application of the grammar to his Calvinistic beliefs, as, for example, throwing in the word "elect," as he did above, to persuade the reader to his theological perspective. All the verse states is that those who come to Jesus had the Father's giving as its antecedent cause, period.

And that giving is election! Hence the validation of what I have said from the start.

(181) The only thing Dr. White is validating is my accusation that he keeps throwing the word "elect" into John 6 without the word "elect" being there. But if he insists on adding the word "elect" (an "elect," as he proposes, which cannot fall from salvation) then ask him to show us how the "elect" of 2 Tim. 2:10 can turn around and "deny" Christ in 2 Tim 2:12.

JRWPrev: Contextually this is the point: those who stood before the Lord in unbelief, who, despite seeing miracles, would not come to Him, did not because they were not given to Him by the Father. This explains their continued unbelief.

Although this is beside the point, it really doesn't explain their unbelief. For if it is true, as Dr. White asserts, that they were not chosen, in the primordial past, to believe when Jesus came, then it would make little difference whether they saw miracles or not when Jesus came.

Mr. Sungenis has completely missed the entire discussion, if these words are representative. Of course it explains their unbelief! And of course it is not beside the point, it is the point! They can stand before the very incarnate Son of God and yet stand in unbelief. Why? Is it because they are somehow "worse" than those who believe? Or, better put, that those who believe are smarter, more insightful, "better" people? NO! The reason is found in the grace and mercy of God alone, for those who are redeemed are so only by mercy. There is nothing in the elect that make them "better" than the others, more likely to "choose" God. We were all, Paul reminds us, dead in our transgressions and sins. This is the whole point, and Mr. Sungenis continues to miss it.

In actuality, then, the notion of using miracles as an impetus for belief really undercuts the Calvinist position. All the Calvinist can say is that the miracles are performed in front of the Jews so as to have more evidence to convict them at Judgment Day for not repenting of their sins, as if God is some kind of ogre who has to grind the point into the sand before He can unleash His fury. But for the Catholic position, the use of miracles fits in very well, since the free will component of their salvation allows the miracles to work their intended effect - - to consider more seriously their responsibility to repent. On occasion, the miracles were instrumental in turning the people to Jesus.

Aside from the rhetoric that flies in the face of so much biblical evidence, let the reader note how again the text is stood on its head: did the miracle of feeding the 5,000 join synergistically with the "free will" of the crowd to lead them to true conversion? Is that the point of the passage? Or is Jesus preparing the Twelve for the result in John 6:65-67? Let the reader decide.

JRWPrev: To throw the emphasis in 6:37 upon the present tense rather than the future action is to miss the context;

To claim that your opponent is "throwing the emphasis on the present tense rather than the future action" when he is not doing so, is the first and only error here.

Let the record stand on its own: "Also, the verb "give" in John 6:37 ("All that the Father gives to me will come to me") is a Greek present tense, not a perfect, which shows that the action of "giving" is occurring presently, and is not confined to whatever White conceives the perfect tense of 6:39 to be saying."

Again, the only reason I mentioned the present tense in John 6:37 was to offset the unwarranted emphasis Dr. White was making of the perfect tense in John 6:39. I neither dwelt on the "ongoing" nature of the present tense in John 6:37, nor did I postulate that its effect was overshadowing the future tense of the verse. See above.

JRWPrev: to miss the weight of the perfect in 6:39 in defining the will of the Father is likewise an error.

The Perfect tense in Greek grammar does not define the will of the Father. The Perfect tense merely tell us when an action took place relative to the main verb, or other verbs, in the sentence structure. Once again, let me reiterate: the only thing the Perfect tense of John 6:39 is doing is showing that the action of "giving" must precede the action of "raising" on the last day. That's not too hard to understand. You don't even need to know Greek to figure that out. It is only when someone tries to inject their own theology into such a simple grammatical construction that problems start to arise.

And since we have seen that Mr. Sungenis is in error even on this basic point of Greek grammar, we encourage the reader to consider this when evaluating so many other claims made in a similar vein.

In Conclusion This file is more than 200K in length. It's probably way too long. But a full response was warranted, if only to make sure that a few items were clear: 1) the flow and meaning of the text is unambiguous and clear; 2) the attempts on Mr. Sungenis' part to interact with the text on a grammatical and syntactical level failed; 3) God is free and sovereign in His work of salvation. Soli Deo Gloria!

(182) Conclusion: Thank you, Dr. White, for participating in this debate. As always, I remain cordial with you, even though I vehemently disagree with your theology. May God bless us both and lead us to truth. Soli Deo Gloria!!

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