In this episode, we have part 3 of a live Q&A recording session at the 2019 FFLC Reformation Conference.
2 Comments
I know you guys would never intentionally misrepresent someone with whom you disagree. The issue of Double Predestination is way more complex than you represented in this episode. If you are interested in knowing a bit of the complexity, here is a link to an article that explains it in enough detail for you to understand that what you are arguing against is not really Calvinism but hyper-Calvinism: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/double-predestination/ BTW, I hope you don’t think that all Calvinism is hyper-Calvinism. 🙂
In case you don’t want to read the whole article, here is a quote from it that denies that Calvinism holds to what you all argued against in this episode:
“The distortion of double predestination looks like this: There is a symmetry that exists between election and reprobation. God works in the same way and same manner with respect to the elect and to the reprobate. That is to say, from all eternity God decreed some to election and by divine initiative works faith in their hearts and brings them actively to salvation. By the same token, from all eternity God decrees some to sin and damnation (destinare ad peccatum) and actively intervenes to work sin in their lives, bringing them to damnation by divine initiative. In the case of the elect, regeneration is the monergistic work of God. In the case of the reprobate, sin and degeneration are the monergistic work of God. Stated another way, we can establish a parallelism of foreordination and predestination by means of a positive symmetry. We can call this a positive-positive view of predestination. This is, God positively and actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to bring them to salvation. In the same way God positively and actively intervenes in the life of the reprobate to bring him to sin.
“This distortion of positive-positive predestination clearly makes God the author of sin who punishes a person for doing what God monergistically and irresistibly coerces man to do. Such a view is indeed a monstrous assault on the integrity of God. This is not the Reformed view of predestination, but a gross and inexcusable caricature of the doctrine. Such a view may be identified with what is often loosely described as hyper-Calvinism and involves a radical form of supralapsarianism. Such a view of predestination has been virtually universally and monolithically rejected by Reformed thinkers.”
If you read the entire article you will see that Sproul actually quotes approvingly from Luther’s “Bondage of the Will”. So, he clearly thinks our thinking is in line with Luther on this point.
There has been a lot written on this topic by Reformed thinkers because we realize how our understanding of the sovereignty of God can be taken to false conclusions that some might view as proper. We have worked through these complex issues at a very nuanced level and we reject double predestination just as you do but for different reasons. So, I hope this helps you represent us more accurately when discussing our beliefs related to this topic in the future.
I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year.
Thank you for your comment, JT. You are right in that we certainly don’t want to misrepresent views from other traditions. Thank you for the direction, and we’ll be checking it out.
I know you guys would never intentionally misrepresent someone with whom you disagree. The issue of Double Predestination is way more complex than you represented in this episode. If you are interested in knowing a bit of the complexity, here is a link to an article that explains it in enough detail for you to understand that what you are arguing against is not really Calvinism but hyper-Calvinism: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/double-predestination/ BTW, I hope you don’t think that all Calvinism is hyper-Calvinism. 🙂
In case you don’t want to read the whole article, here is a quote from it that denies that Calvinism holds to what you all argued against in this episode:
“The distortion of double predestination looks like this: There is a symmetry that exists between election and reprobation. God works in the same way and same manner with respect to the elect and to the reprobate. That is to say, from all eternity God decreed some to election and by divine initiative works faith in their hearts and brings them actively to salvation. By the same token, from all eternity God decrees some to sin and damnation (destinare ad peccatum) and actively intervenes to work sin in their lives, bringing them to damnation by divine initiative. In the case of the elect, regeneration is the monergistic work of God. In the case of the reprobate, sin and degeneration are the monergistic work of God. Stated another way, we can establish a parallelism of foreordination and predestination by means of a positive symmetry. We can call this a positive-positive view of predestination. This is, God positively and actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to bring them to salvation. In the same way God positively and actively intervenes in the life of the reprobate to bring him to sin.
“This distortion of positive-positive predestination clearly makes God the author of sin who punishes a person for doing what God monergistically and irresistibly coerces man to do. Such a view is indeed a monstrous assault on the integrity of God. This is not the Reformed view of predestination, but a gross and inexcusable caricature of the doctrine. Such a view may be identified with what is often loosely described as hyper-Calvinism and involves a radical form of supralapsarianism. Such a view of predestination has been virtually universally and monolithically rejected by Reformed thinkers.”
If you read the entire article you will see that Sproul actually quotes approvingly from Luther’s “Bondage of the Will”. So, he clearly thinks our thinking is in line with Luther on this point.
There has been a lot written on this topic by Reformed thinkers because we realize how our understanding of the sovereignty of God can be taken to false conclusions that some might view as proper. We have worked through these complex issues at a very nuanced level and we reject double predestination just as you do but for different reasons. So, I hope this helps you represent us more accurately when discussing our beliefs related to this topic in the future.
I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year.
Your brother in Christ,
JT
Thank you for your comment, JT. You are right in that we certainly don’t want to misrepresent views from other traditions. Thank you for the direction, and we’ll be checking it out.