RC Sproul interview: Dilemmas of Calvinism

[MarcoPolo]

You can hear this month’s interview by RC Sproul of author Craig Brown on The 5 Dilemmas of Calvinism, a book apparently defending Calvinism (producer John Duncan also joins in). You can hear the stream here via iTunes or WMP. The interview part is the first 21 minutes or so.

The following are my summaries of answers given:

How can God be sovereign and man be free?
Brown: The 2 are not opposed. The Bible teaches it. Just because our human minds don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

If God is in control of everything, why should we do good works?
Brown: God works through humans to bring about His will.
Sproul: God ordains the ends and the means, namely our obligation to do what God commands. We should be motivated to do His will because He’s sovereign
Duncan: That we have free will yet God is still completely sovereign is just a testament to how amazing God is

If the elect are predetermined and unchangeable, why bother to evangelize?
Brown: Because God uses us at the means to bring about His elect.

Why is there evil?
Brown: He didn’t really answer…He just said God is in control…and that all things are for the good of the elect, but the Bible doesn’t really tell us where evil came from, but since God created good, everything automatically has an opposite.
Sproul: The will of the sovereign God uses people’s evil decisions to do His will

Do infants go to heaven?
Brown: Although Scripture is fairly silent on this, Brown feels confident that babies go to heaven…refer to the book for the allusions in Scripture of God’s love for children.

A few thoughts:
I am generally quite unsatisfied with Brown’s and Sproul’s answers, granted they only had 20 minutes to get much into these. But on it’s face, the way they use the term “sovereign” seems to me to mean that all activity on earth is exactly as God wants it to happen and is caused by Him. However I fail to see God having influence in evil, but rather the way He permits it, like how He let the devil tempt Job. As well, this line of thinking begs the question, what if God’s will is to let us have free will? I do not see how any of the “elect” of Calvinism can have “love” if they are merely instruments by which God does His plan. If the will is not ours, entirely a gift from God, how could love have meaning?

The only answer I thought had good reasoning behind it was the one on infants.

Any other thoughts? I am admittedly very lightly familiar with Calvinism. Are there Calvinists who could expound or correct me on any of this? Or anyone else who has heard such Calvinistic arguments addressed?

 

[Contarini]

But on it’s face, the way they use the term “sovereign” seems to me to mean that all activity on earth is exactly as God wants it to happen and is caused by Him. However I fail to see God having influence in evil, but rather the way He permits it, like how He let the devil tempt Job.

Yes, this is one of the places where Calvin’s propensity for cutting Gordian knots did not serve him well, and the Reformed would be well advised to listen to some of their other founding fathers, such as my friend Martin Bucer. Permission does raise all sorts of problems of its own, but denying the permission/causation distinction makes the problems far worse.

As well, this line of thinking begs the question, what if God’s will is to let us have free will? I do not see how any of the “elect” of Calvinism can have “love” if they are merely instruments by which God does His plan. If the will is not ours, entirely a gift from God, how could love have meaning?

I thought it was common Christian teaching that our good will comes from God, not some Calvinist peculiarity. Just what do you mean by the will being “ours”? Why is a thing less “ours” if it comes from God?

Edwin

 

[MarcoPolo]

Yes, this is one of the places where Calvin’s propensity for cutting Gordian knots did not serve him well, and the Reformed would be well advised to listen to some of their other founding fathers, such as my friend Martin Bucer. Permission does raise all sorts of problems of its own, but denying the permission/causation distinction makes the problems far worse.

Do share! What are some of the permission problems? Who is Martin Bucer?

I thought it was common Christian teaching that our good will comes from God, not some Calvinist peculiarity. Just what do you mean by the will being “ours”? Why is a thing less “ours” if it comes from God?

I didn’t mean it quite that way…I meant that the Calvinist language seems to deny that God permits us free will in the sense that He gives us choice. In listening to this interview, it just sounds like our “free will” is just us doing exactly as God intended for us, which doesn’t sound like free will! You are perhaps more informed about Calvinistic teaching, if there is even a unified teaching.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

You can hear this month’s interview by RC Sproul of author Craig Brown on The 5 Dilemmas of Calvinism, a book apparently defending Calvinism (producer John Duncan also joins in). You can hear the stream here via iTunes or WMP. The interview part is the first 21 minutes or so.

The following are my summaries of answers given:

How can God be sovereign and man be free?
Brown: The 2 are not opposed. The Bible teaches it. Just because our human minds don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

If God is in control of everything, why should we do good works?
Brown: God works through humans to bring about His will.
Sproul: God ordains the ends and the means, namely our obligation to do what God commands. We should be motivated to do His will because He’s sovereign
Duncan: That we have free will yet God is still completely sovereign is just a testament to how amazing God is

If the elect are predetermined and unchangeable, why bother to evangelize?
Brown: Because God uses us at the means to bring about His elect.

1. God’s decree to elect is unchangeable - the elect most certainly are not unchangeable. To get the language wrong is not fair to Calvinist doctrine, & won’t help us to understand it. (Edwin’s the Lutheran, I seem to be the (quasi)-Calvinist )​

1. Because our obedience in so doing is God’s Will, is a participation in the Work of His Son Whose members we are. Is Christ to be lazy because we are ?
2. Election is not call to laziness - it is a call to service, to obedience, to good works, to making God’s Name & Gospel known to all whom He has created. God has “created us for good works that we should walk in them”; not to waste His grace by doing nothing to build His Church. Grace is not shed on us that we might be rich in sinfulness - it is poured out on us that Christ may be glorified. It is a trampling of the Blood of Christ underfoot for us to abuse the very Mercy which has ransomed us from sin, if we use that Mercy as an excuse not to evangelise. God’s kindness to us is not for our selfish ends, but for His Will. That kind of attitude uses grace as a reason to continue in sin - & St. Paul makes short work of that, in Romans 6. It is devil’s thinking for us to use God’s Love in order to reject Him.
3. The election of sinners to salvation is not primarily for their sakes, but for Christ’s - they are elected not so much that they might escape damnation, as that they may show forth the effects of His salvation in them.
4. Creatures are not necessary - God has no need of anything. By laying on creatures the duty of evangelism, He is doing them the great honour of using their activity to carry out His. They are nothing of themselves, & would vanish if He did not at every instant maintain them in being; yet His Good News is spoken through their lips, & their finite & faulty actions are made powerful to have His effects.

…more…]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…ended]

Why is there evil?
Brown: He didn’t really answer…He just said God is in control…and that all things are for the good of the elect, but the Bible doesn’t really tell us where evil came from, but since God created good, everything automatically has an opposite.

No. This gives a false standing to evil - it is not required; if it were true that it were, then God would need an opposite for us to love Him. Does a man need a mistress in order to love his wife ? No.​

Sproul: The will of the sovereign God uses people’s evil decisions to do His will

Exactly - the malice of satan exercised through sinful men brought about the judgement of God on sin, & the love of God for sinners; what the devil & men intended was done, but as God intended, not as they did. The sovereignty of God is shown on Calvary; He overruled the intentions of men to produce the good He intended from the evil they intended; not because He is evil, but because He is wholly Good. He does not need us to do good, for Him to do good. God cannot be out-witted, not even by our malice. Since God & creatures are not equals, this is not surprising. This Divine “resourcefulness” (so to call it) is definitely Good News - it means that even our worst is no match for the power of His Love ​

He fore-ordained the selling of Joseph by his brothers, for their sin was used as a means whereby He brought about the promotion of Joseph to a position in which he was able to help them; had He not done so, Jesus might never have been born, as His ancestors might not have been. This doesn’t make sins not sinful - it means that God’s activity cannot be thwarted by creatures; their very resistance to Him only serves to exalt Him. Joseph’s bothers intended evil against Joseph - God intended good, to Joseph, & also to his brothers. Their malice, brought about His Will, despite their malice

Do infants go to heaven?
Brown: Although Scripture is fairly silent on this, Brown feels confident that babies go to heaven…refer to the book for the allusions in Scripture of God’s love for children.

A few thoughts:
I am generally quite unsatisfied with Brown’s and Sproul’s answers, granted they only had 20 minutes to get much into these. But on it’s face, the way they use the term “sovereign” seems to me to mean that all activity on earth is exactly as God wants it to happen and is caused by Him. However I fail to see God having influence in evil, but rather the way He permits it, like how He let the devil tempt Job. As well, this line of thinking begs the question, what if God’s will is to let us have free will? I do not see how any of the “elect” of Calvinism can have “love” if they are merely instruments by which God does His plan. If the will is not ours, entirely a gift from God, how could love have meaning?

The only answer I thought had good reasoning behind it was the one on infants.

Any other thoughts? I am admittedly very lightly familiar with Calvinism. Are there Calvinists who could expound or correct me on any of this? Or anyone else who has heard such Calvinistic arguments addressed?

 

[bogeydogg]

I am a reformed Calvinist who does not think Calvin would be a Calvinist, and I have great admiration for R.C. Sproul. I would like to point out, that unlike many of his contemporaries such as MacArthur, one will not find, at least in my experience, Sproul bad-mouthing the Catholic Church. Rather he will object on matters where he feels his conscience prohibits him from himself being a Catholic, but at the same time he fully recognizes the great debt all Christians owe to the Mother Church and I have heard him poo-poo those who slander the Church by saying “it has a works based salvation.”

To the point.

I disagree with Sproul and I think his adherance to this doctrine of God’s absolute fore-ordination plays disservice to some of his other ideas which have been astounding and formative for me. One good example is his idea of causation and the negation of the existence of chance because of it. However, I cringe to hear him, I listened to this program on the radio the day it aired, then reverse himself with a doctrinal standpoint that I think is largely indefensible, at least within the context of how modern day “Calvinism” presents it.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Do share! What are some of the permission problems? Who is Martin Bucer?

I didn’t mean it quite that way…I meant that the Calvinist language seems to deny that God permits us free will in the sense that He gives us choice. In listening to this interview, it just sounds like our “free will” is just us doing exactly as God intended for us, which doesn’t sound like free will! You are perhaps more informed about Calvinistic teaching, if there is even a unified teaching.

Sounds like free will to me !​

FW is a very thorny subject - we have FW, not to be at liberty from God, but to be at liberty for God. My freedom lies, not in seeking what pleases me, but in what pleases Christ. That’s because He is the Lord, & I am a creature; His creature. The universe is not a value-free universe - it is a Christ-centred universe - it exists, not that “My will be done” - it is ruinous for a creature to say that; but, that “Thy Will be done” - our freedom is in doing, out of love, that for which we have been created - & we have been created, that God might be glorified in us.

The problem at the Fall was, that this God-given, Christ-centred freedom was used, not to serve God & His Holy Will, but to serve man & his unholy will - the faculty of willing remained, because it is as much a constituent of human nature as having a human soul or body; but the exercise of it was used against God, rather than for Him. And because we are all born in the state of original sin, that original distortion is in us too: we are not only finite - all creatures are that; we are finite* & sinful*.

So we have wills, but they no longer function as they were meant to by God - that first sin means that the perversion of will which led to it is, in us, not obviously perverse at all: we like blind men born in a country of the blind - a man seeing with both eyes would seem sick, if the blind know only of blind men & not of men with eyes. That is how it is with our wills - they are perverted so that we seek not God, but self; so loving service of God seems like slavery, though it is alone real freedom.

So God’s demands on us, which are entirely good, holy, life-giving, & full of every goodness, seem to be an invasion of our rights, restricting, cruel, enslaving - so He has to pull out all the stops, even if it kills Him, to show us what freedom is. And it does kill Him. He has taken our rebellion, our sin, our disobedience, on Himself, He has taken our faculty of willing, & redeemed it by exercising it in a genuinely human, but also self-sacrificingly obedient, way - He has used it as it was meant to be used; not because He had to help us, but because He freely willed to do so.

And because He has assumed an unfallen human nature, our activity can be assumed into His - our acts of obedience to the Father, are an expression, by us, of His obedience; the doing of them is one of the reasons for, & fruits of, the gift of the Holy Spirit - His Holy Spirit. This shows the perfection of His Love for His Father, & that ours for Him & for our fellow-creatures is not love in words only, but is genuine. So whereas we were ruined by the sin of the first Adam, the obedience of the Last Adam has restored us, & more than restored us: “where sin abounded…, grace has super-abounded…” (Romans 5)

Hope that helps

 

[danonwaveland]

Thank you for your thoughts on this topic. I will have to re-read this thread a couple more times.

I have a niece who, along with her husband, is an evangelical Presbyterian and I want to have at least a basic understanding of her beliefs before they visit at Christmas. I have read – and will re-read – Steve Ray’s “Tiptoe Through the TULIP” article, as well as other sources of information. However, it seems as though – as it is with many things Catholics and Protestants discuss – we have different meanings for the same words (e.g., free will in this case), which clouds our communication.

By the way, if anyone Presbyterian would care to answer, I’d appreciate a comment on something I heard the other day: Presbyterians think that material wealth/success is a sign of God’s election. Is this a commonly-held belief among Presbyterians and, if so, could you explain?

Thanks again and God bless!

 

[DaveBj]

snip
I have read – and will re-read – Steve Ray’s “Tiptoe Through the TULIP” article, as well as other sources of information.

snip

Got a link for that? As a former Sproul fan (and current Steven Ray fan), I’d like to read that myself.

 

[Contarini]

I am a reformed Calvinist who does not think Calvin would be a Calvinist

Well, that may be true–most Calvinists historically would probably be too rational and moderate for Calvin, who would think they were slipping back into the errors of the Sophists (i.e., actually thinking through issues logically instead of just making rhetorical pronouncements and slashing wildly at Gordian knots).

OK, this is a huge exaggeration. I like Calvin, at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays if I have gotten enough sleep and had a good breakfast and lots of coffee. But by and large I’m more impressed with Calvinism than with Calvin, and I think the tendency to exalt Calvin over Calvinism is a typical example of founder nostalgia, from which Protestants of all stripes need to free ourselves.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Do share! What are some of the permission problems? Who is Martin Bucer?

A pastor and theologian in Strasbourg (lived 1491-1551, active in Strasbourg 1523-1549, taught at Cambridge 1549-51). Calvin spend several years in Strasbourg after he was kicked out of Geneva in 1538, and many people think Bucer had a huge influence on Calvin’s theology. This can be debated endlessly, but there are a lot of similarities, as well as some striking differences. And in terms of ideas, I think that most of the differences were in Bucer’s favor–he was generally a more balanced and profound theologian than Calvin, in my opinion. However, Calvin was a much better writer and saw things in much more clear-cut terms, so the Reformed tradition of Protestantism has come to be dubbed “Calvinist” rather than “Bucerian.” (I have a stake in this because I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Bucer.)

Bucer had been a Dominican and had studied Aquinas, and it shows. His discussion of predestination is much closer to that of Aquinas (though certainly he makes predestination much more central to his theology), and so he is able to talk about free will and predestination together, where Calvin has trouble seeing the point in speaking of free will at all. Bucer is more willing than Aquinas to say that God causes everything that happens, but he is more nuanced than Calvin in distinguishing between permission and causation. In a sense you could think of him as half way between Aquinas and Calvin.

I didn’t mean it quite that way…I meant that the Calvinist language seems to deny that God permits us free will in the sense that He gives us choice.

If by “choice” you mean that there is a real possibility that we will go either way, then you are right. But given what most Christians have historically believed about God’s knowledge and providential activity, the more you think about what it means to say that (from God’s perspective) people could do other than they do, the more complicated it appears.

In listening to this interview, it just sounds like our “free will” is just us doing exactly as God intended for us, which doesn’t sound like free will!

It depends on how you define free will–and how you define God’s “intention,” since of course Calvinists would say that on one level God wills everyone to do what is righteous and holy (indeed, goodness could be defined by the more voluntarist Calvinists as acting according to God’s will).

You are perhaps more informed about Calvinistic teaching, if there is even a unified teaching.

There are common confessions (most universally the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, and the Heidelberg Catechism–for Presbyterians there is also the Westminster Confession, and the Second Helvetic Confession also commands respect), and a theological tradition with plenty of disagreement and debate but also some common themes/emphases and certain commonly respected theologians (most notably Calvin, of course).

And yes, I know something about this tradition, particularly in its earlier stages.

Edwin

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

A pastor and theologian in Strasbourg (lived 1491-1551, active in Strasbourg 1523-1549, taught at Cambridge 1549-51). Calvin spend several years in Strasbourg after he was kicked out of Geneva in 1538, and many people think Bucer had a huge influence on Calvin’s theology. This can be debated endlessly, but there are a lot of similarities, as well as some striking differences. And in terms of ideas, I think that most of the differences were in Bucer’s favor–he was generally a more balanced and profound theologian than Calvin, in my opinion. However, Calvin was a much better writer and saw things in much more clear-cut terms, so the Reformed tradition of Protestantism has come to be dubbed “Calvinist” rather than “Bucerian.” (I have a stake in this because I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Bucer.)

The only thing I know about him was that he had a hand in the English Reformation under Edward VI - I think ​

Bucer had been a Dominican and had studied Aquinas, and it shows. His discussion of predestination is much closer to that of Aquinas (though certainly he makes predestination much more central to his theology), and so he is able to talk about free will and predestination together, where Calvin has trouble seeing the point in speaking of free will at all. Bucer is more willing than Aquinas to say that God causes everything that happens, but he is more nuanced than Calvin in distinguishing between permission and causation. In a sense you could think of him as half way between Aquinas and Calvin.

If by “choice” you mean that there is a real possibility that we will go either way, then you are right. But given what most Christians have historically believed about God’s knowledge and providential activity, the more you think about what it means to say that (from God’s perspective) people could do other than they do, the more complicated it appears.

Unless there are gaps in God’s knowledge of creatures, the difference between being permitted by God to damn oneself, & being positively reprobated by God so as to be damned, is not clear. In neither case is anyone not responsible for sinning. Maybe Calvin looks at reprobation from one end, & St.Thomas from another ​

The differences in substance in their understandings of reprobation are very hard to see. If one looks at what the CC allows to be taught on election (which cannot really be separated from predestination or reprobation) the differences are much more obvious.

It depends on how you define free will–and how you define God’s “intention,” since of course Calvinists would say that on one level God wills everyone to do what is righteous and holy (indeed, goodness could be defined by the more voluntarist Calvinists as acting according to God’s will).

This is where (or one place where) things get complicated - it is possible so to stress God’s Will as a power, that its character as righteous is overlooked. Calvin has been accused of turning God into an omnipotent devil; most notably perhaps by John Wesley. Some Catholics seem to think that God’s secret Will is a subterfuge to allow Him to renege on what He declares by His revealed Will - ISTM they are mistaking sovereignty for tyranny. But God’s Will is always righteous, because it is His Will (though one wonders what Calvinism would have made of Gen. 22)​

OTOH - Calvinism has a tendency to slip back into Judaism: Christian Restructionism is one manifestation of this. Since Calvinism has a very high esteem for the Law of Moses, & emphasises personal holiness & “godly order” in the Church, it is not hard to see how these together may decay into legalism, formalism, & sectarian animosity to non-Calvinists - they need not. That they can, is a result less of the fact that Calvinism is not in union with Rome, than of the difficulty that sinful human beings have in living by a Gospel which is essentially supernatural. To live by it is a balancing act - & sometimes Calvinists, like any other Christians, lose their balance.

There are common confessions (most universally the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, and the Heidelberg Catechism–for Presbyterians there is also the Westminster Confession, and the Second Helvetic Confession also commands respect), and a theological tradition with plenty of disagreement and debate but also some common themes/emphases and certain commonly respected theologians (most notably Calvin, of course).

And yes, I know something about this tradition, particularly in its earlier stages.

Edwin

 

[bogeydogg]

I have said before and again that I think the greatest contribution of Calvin is his commentary and not his theology. However, to a certain extent based upon what I have read of him and by him I think TULIP, or more specificly the idea of double-predestination, gets laid at his feet somewhat unfairly.

The idea first surfaced with Godescalc of Orbais in the ninth century as an understanding of St. Augustines view of the Predestination of the Saints. For those keeping track that is 700 years before Calvin. Secondly, when Calvin did write about predestination he did so only as a post-script to the Doctrine of Grace in the institutes.

However, it is fair to say also that there is a real reverence for the Founders of Protestant faiths and as such I agree that we must aproach with care. A great example is R.C. Sproul’s nearly total devotion to Luther which I think is unfounded because of Luther’s bombastic personality and his extremely judgmental stance on Scripture. I should note here that while I am a Protestant, which those who know me may dispute, I do read and study the so-called apocrypha because I think it’s exclusion is unfounded especially given it’s being mentioned and quoted by NT authors.

I think Calvin over stressed God’s sovereignty as well as the severity of His holiness because he was trying to make people understand the need for personal holiness. The problem is that this teaching, even in his own day, became a tyrrany to those who disagreed with it and it has continued as such to this day. It is well said that there are few in Protestant circles who will not think the Calvinist to be judgmental if not down right cruel in the severity of his belief.

I think however that the idea of absolute fore-ordination leads to real logical problems in dealing with free will and man’s responsibility for his own sin, and as such it is a doctrine which I have stepped away from. I didn’t ever follow double-predestination or limited atonement as anymore than curiosities best chalked up as lacking human explanations for Divine Mysteries.

As far as Calvin’s theology, it largely followed in the vein of Zwingli and Luther, or so I have always thought though I admit I could be wrong, who chose to follow in the footsteps of St. Augustine without acknowledging that a great deal of Augustine’s teaching on the matter was during the Pelagian Controversy and was a strong statment meant to deal with a dangerous heresy. When John Cassian objected that it was an over-statement in Augustine’s day, the venerable Saint while he disagreed did not strenuously object.

In Aquinas we find a tempering of the more aggresive nature of St. Augustine and the reasoning of St. Thomas is difficult to argue with. It is unfortunate that Luther, who was an Augustinian Monk, neglected St. Thomas’ teachings in favor of St. Augustines without a proper application of the time in which those teachings came to the fore. If he had perhaps a great deal of suffering and misunderstanding could have been avoided and heresies long since staunched in the RCC would not have found fertile soil in the halls of Protestant Christian Churches today.

There is a Persian proverb which teaches that the difficulty with Djin is not getting them out of the bottle but getting them back in. Just something to think about.

 

[Steadfast]

Thank you for your thoughts on this topic. I will have to re-read this thread a couple more times.

I have a niece who, along with her husband, is an evangelical Presbyterian and I want to have at least a basic understanding of her beliefs before they visit at Christmas. I have read – and will re-read – Steve Ray’s “Tiptoe Through the TULIP” article, as well as other sources of information. However, it seems as though – as it is with many things Catholics and Protestants discuss – we have different meanings for the same words (e.g., free will in this case), which clouds our communication.

By the way, if anyone Presbyterian would care to answer, I’d appreciate a comment on something I heard the other day: Presbyterians think that material wealth/success is a sign of God’s election. Is this a commonly-held belief among Presbyterians and, if so, could you explain?

Thanks again and God bless!

Why would you read a Catholic polemicist for an understanding of Calvinist soteriology?

You’d do far better to read Sproul or Horton.

Or even Matt McMahon

To answer your question though, you probably heard a mischaracterization of what is usually called “The Protestant Work Ethic”.

Presbyterians and Calvinists do not believe that God will necessarily bless the elect with material benefits or that the presence of such benefits are signs of His election. However, they do believe that a commitment to excellence in all that they do should be a sign of their faith and that such a commitment will necessarily, under most circumstances result in proper reward.

 

[Bishopite]

By the way, if anyone Presbyterian would care to answer, I’d appreciate a comment on something I heard the other day: Presbyterians think that material wealth/success is a sign of God’s election. Is this a commonly-held belief among Presbyterians and, if so, could you explain?

Thanks again and God bless!

It must be a belief among Reformed/Presbyterian camps. I have a Reformed pastor friend who teaches asceticism is wrong because it not only denies us the fruits of God but is done so in what he calls “mechanical” ways for unproductive fruit.
But the problem he doesn’t face is that with our fallen nature, what we deem as “fruits of God” aren’t always what God sees as fruits and we end up leaning toward, eventually going down a road to selfish desires and that hinders us from truly loving God as we could.
True love of God give–gives up–does not seek it’s own (1 Cor 13) and it seems to me that the Apostle Paul is saying that in order to love God more and your neighbor as youself (Mark 12:29) Jesus’ greatest commandments, we need to practice the reality of giving up on the things of this world which aren’t beneficial to us nor to others. Certainly all are NOT called to give up everything in the strict sense, although some are, and that’s something bad? Jesus gave all for us willingly and lovingly, aren’t we to do the same?
And that it is argued that asceticism is merely “mechanical” is a false presumption since no human knows another humans heart; that’s reserved for God alone. Some actually do give up all for God, we Catholics/Eastern Orthodox call them Saints.
If a person wills to give up all for God in order to love God more and unite themeselves to Jesus in a more mystical way without neglecting their responsibilities for those under their care then how can that be something bad or even negative?
Every Christian is called to a sacrificial life; parents give their time and money, love and patients to their children, husbands give up for there wifes, wifes for their husbands and they pass on that virtue to their children.
Some are called to a single life of sacrificial giving as was John the Baptist, Paul and Jesus and to follow their example is simply following the ways of God.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Got a link for that? As a former Sproul fan (and current Steven Ray fan), I’d like to read that myself.

It’s actually a by Jimmy Akin. Read here.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Election is not call to laziness - it is a call to service, to obedience, to good works, to making God’s Name & Gospel known to all whom He has created. God has “created us for good works that we should walk in them”; not to waste His grace by doing nothing to build His Church. Grace is not shed on us that we might be rich in sinfulness - it is poured out on us that Christ may be glorified. It is a trampling of the Blood of Christ underfoot for us to abuse the very Mercy which has ransomed us from sin, if we use that Mercy as an excuse not to evangelise. God’s kindness to us is not for our selfish ends, but for His Will. That kind of attitude uses grace as a reason to continue in sin - & St. Paul makes short work of that, in Romans 6. It is devil’s thinking for us to use God’s Love in order to reject Him.

Thanks for your thought-filled answers. But in this part I fail to see how this satisfies the question of “if the elect are unchangeable, what value is there in evangelizing or that the elect will ‘show forth the effects’ of Christ?”

 

[MarcoPolo]

Why would you read a Catholic polemicist for an understanding of Calvinist soteriology?

If you are talking about Jimmy Akin, he used to be a Presbyterian.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Also…The way I understand Sproul and Brown’s comments, if a person is one of the “elect,” he will have lost his free will to reject Christ. Is that correct?

 

[Steadfast]

If you are talking about Jimmy Akin, he used to be a Presbyterian.

I wouldn’t consult a “former” anything for information on whatever it was they used to be.

Converts are notably incapable of objectivity on these sorts of things.