Rest in peace, R C Sproul.
Posted on 12/14/2017 1:43:55 PM PST by HarleyD
So sad to see him go but will rejoice one day with him.
RIP Dr. Sproul!
I spent many, many hundreds of hours studying Dr. Sproul’s writing on Reformed Christian doctrine when I first came to the Lord. He was a great man.
He will hear the words “Well done good and faithful servant” from the Lord.
R.C. Sproul was, as the British would say, a man in full. He never made a half-argument, presented a half-correction, preached a half-sermon, or laughed a half-laugh. He was all in, all the time. His voice would fill the room, his preaching would shake the timbers, and his passion would spread like a virus. He showed up as everything he was and with everything he believed – every time.
Umm, no he didn’t.
Rest in peace, R C Sproul.
Not trying to defend the Wesleyan view. Was being a bit flippant with the eat, drink and be merry.
The actual question was one that I asked Rod Rosenbladt about the doctrine of election that goes “you are dead in your sins, and dead men can’t choose”. It’s an example that I heard his associate Michael Horton use, and Horton teaches theology at Westminster Seminary CA so I assumed that it is legit Calvinist thought.
Rosenbladt agreed that it is a conundrum and he didn’t offer a solution for it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a sufficient explanation, it just means that I haven’t heard one that doesn’t leave me confused.
>>Rosenbladt agreed that it is a conundrum and he didn’t offer a solution for it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a sufficient explanation, it just means that I haven’t heard one that doesn’t leave me confused.
https://www.ligonier.org/blog/why-we-cant-choose-god/
“We’re not free from our own sinful inclinations, and our sinful appetites, and our sinful desires. We’re slaves to our sinful impulses. That’s what the Bible teaches us again, and again, and again. The humanist doctrine of free will, the pagan view of free will says that man is free not only from coercion, but man is free in the sense that his will is indifferent. It has no predisposition, or inclination, bias, or bent towards sin because the pagan and the humanist deny the radical character of the fall. But the Bible teaches us that we are fallen creatures who still choose and make decisions, but we make them in the context of our prison of sin. And the only way we can get out of that prison is if God sets us free.” (Sproul)
It only becomes a conundrum when you demand your “rights” as a human being to share power with God. Most American Christians are devout Humanists and Christian when it is convenient.
That’s an answer, but to a different question.
The conundrum is/was ‘why evangelize?’- those who aren’t elect won’t respond, and the elect won’t need it since they aren’t choosing.
>>The conundrum is/was ‘why evangelize?’- those who aren’t elect won’t respond, and the elect won’t need it since they aren’t choosing.
The answer to that is that the Christian life is more peaceful and fulfilling than that of Natural Man. As we’ve seen in the USA, the decline of cultural Christianity has affected the moral fabric of the nation. So, you evangelize because you don’t know who is the elect and who isn’t, and even though the elect don’t “choose” salvation, they do “choose” the Christian Life on Earth.
“the Reformed view of election leaves me unconvinced. I understand how they get to it, but my reaction is “then why not just eat, drink and be merry because you’re not the elect anyway so what the hell...””
Well, go ahead and eat and drink and be merry, but know that you are always open to God’s grace and will. When He decides to “save” you, you will be saved in spite of your cynical self. C.S. Lewis wrote that he was dragged kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of God. And then he was surprised by joy.
I’m not cynical and I understand the doctrine of grace.
The answer to why evangelize, is Jesus commanded it.
When we share the gospel, we are being obedient. The Holy Spirit will call the Elect. God uses means and we are privileged to be a part of His plan by sharing the Gospel message. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. We are messengers.
Dr Sproul told about having that question asked by the the late Dr Gerstner, during one of Sproul’s seminary classes. (And I am paraphrasing)
Sproul answered, with a meek, questioning voice, “Because we are commanded to do so?
Gertsner replied, in a sarcastic, bombastic tone, “Mr Sproul, do you mean that just because the King of all if creation commanded us to do this we should do so?”
So yes, because we are commanded to do so. Because we are given the privelege to participate in Hus redemptive plan.
>>Sproul answered, with a meek, questioning voice, “Because we are commanded to do so?
Excellent answer. That sure puts that conundrum to bed.
That’s also good advice. The better life through virtue resonated strongly with the Stoics and they probably constituted a lot of the early converts. It just doesn’t solve the question of ‘why evangelize?’ under the ‘dead man can’t choose’ view of election. Because under that view no one can choose anything.
I don’t think it’s really that a big a deal. It’s more a curious problem of logic that may not be able to be solved. Most Christians seem to operate as semi-Pelagians/semi-Arminians no matter what denomination they belong to. The arcane points of predestination and election don’t interest a wide audience.
Nothing personal. You were just expressing the cynical view, and I meant to be addressing that. Will your understanding of the doctrine of grace be extended to a poor construction of my argument?
>>Because under that view no one can choose anything.
That’s just not true. Sproul tells a great story about a fork in the road to explain that.
“The answer to why evangelize, is Jesus commanded it.”
And that was indeed Rod Rosenbladt’s answer. Why share the Gospel when neither the elect nor the non-elect can choose to accept or reject it is the mystery that goes unexplained. He acknowledged that logically it appears to accomplish nothing under the ‘dead men can’t choose’ doctrine, so apparently he had noticed that curious aspect before. But he didn’t deny that it is inherent in that view of election, which is what I was wondering when I asked him about it.
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