Sanctification and Reformation

Free Will? I recently watched as two outdoors men attempted to free an adult bull elk from a mud pit.   These are enormous animals.   His entire rear half was submerged and the mud was so think he had no hope of getting out.   This was going to be the bull’s final resting place. The men approached cautiously and began to try to free the huge animal.   However, as soon as they got close, the elk would swing his rack at them. The elk didn’t want them there, didn’t understand why they were there, and was actively attempting to defend himself with his antlers. The elk was simply operating freely according to his elk-ish nature. They are by nature wild animals and humans are an unwanted presence. The elk wanted to be freed from his muddy chains but he only wanted rescue on his own terms.   The men did not abide by the elk’s wishes but worked together using various implements until the elk was rescued from its pit of despair.   This was n...

God's Sovereignty: Predestination & Free Will Part 2 Many begin the discussion of salvation through the 5 points of Arminianism or Calvinism with a discussion of man’s natural state.   However, I don’t think that’s the appropriate place to begin.   All theology begins and ends with God, not man.   That’s why we must begin with God and not just in a general sense but specifically with respect to His sovereignty. So once again the history behind how this discussion came into being is helpful in understanding the way that it developed. The Remonstrance, you’ll recall, was a protest against the Protestant church (which itself was a protest against the Roman Catholic Church).   The Protestants, up to that point, largely held to Augustinian (proto-Calvinist) theology.   The Remonstrance opposed this and said they believed that men were sinners but that they were not so spiritually dead that they could not respond to God spiritually. They believed t...

Every denomination has an explanation for predestination. However, they all fall into one of three categories: Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Augustinianism.   Some today would object to those categories but they’re accurate in where they came from historically.   Today we call  Semi-Pelagianism  = Arminianism and we call Augustinianism = Calvinism. In the next few posts I will undertake the doctrine of biblical predestination/election, give some portion of its history through the NT church age, what it consists of and means, and why it matters.   This is by no means exhaustive. So, let’s begin with how the debate began. The church underwent a great many trials in the fourth century and the staunch defender of the faith who arose was Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century. This was in Hippo Regius which was located in modern-day Annaba, Algeria. After some time, a British monk by the name of Pelagius was appalled by the moral laxity ...