|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Occasional Essays
and Other Stuff
for Christian
Students
Presented by
the
President of
|
American Christianity needs leaders. American Christianity needs Christian leaders. Christian leaders explain the Scriptures, bringing them to bear upon life’s urgent questions. Christian leaders exemplify the life of faith, finding their ultimate satisfaction in God alone. They unite intellectual discipline with ordinate affection, turning their entire being toward the love of God. These essays are dedicated to the task of inviting today’s Christian students to become tomorrow’s Christian leaders.
|
“…Be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”
X
X X February 4, 2005
X X X |
|
|
||
|
|
| |
|
George Herbert
(1593-1663) left his membership in
|
The
Altar
George Herbert
A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant
rears,
|
|
|
|
||
|
The Logic of Limited
Atonement
One regularly hears the argument that Limited
Atonement stands or falls with the other four points of Calvinism. Both Calvinists and
anti-Calvinists attempt to use this argument to demonstrate the
inconsistency of holding Unconditional Election while denying Limited
Atonement. The argument
purports to be strictly logical.
The Calvinist argues that Christ would not die for someone whom He
did not intend to save. The
anti-Calvinist finds it incredible that Christ would fail to elect someone
for whom His blood was shed.
Both sides allege that holding only four points of
Calvinism is logically
impossible.
This argument rests upon both a logical and a
theological confusion. The
theological confusion lies in the failure distinguish the provision of
salvation from the application of salvation. The distinction between provision
and application is crucial to biblical soteriology, even if Limited Atonement is true. Salvation is not automatically
applied to anyone for whom Christ provided it. The New Testament is clear on this
point. Prior to their
conversion, even the elect are dead in trespasses and sins. Until they believe they remain
children of wrath. Therefore,
everyone for whom salvation has been provided must still believe on Christ
before it will be applied. Sola fide remains the maxim of
justification.
Everyone except the universalists recognizes
that the atonement is limited in its application. The question is whether God
intended to limit the atonement in its provision. One cannot answer this by
appealing to evidence for limited application. Even if one recognizes (as
Calvinists do) that part of God’s intention through the death of Christ
was to secure the application of salvation to the elect, such belief still
does not reveal for whom God intended to provide
salvation.
This exposes the logical confusion in the argument
for Limited Atonement. That
argument is that the affirmation of Unconditional Election is strictly
incompatible with the rejection of Limited Atonement. Such a contradiction, however, is
entirely illusory. This will
become evident if the argument is reduced to clear, molecular
statements.
Proposition
One:
Some persons are not
persons for whom Christ intended to secure the provision of
salvation.
Those who reject Limited Atonement do not object
to what it affirms, namely, that Christ died to provide salvation for the
elect. The question is about
the status of the non-elect: did Christ intend to provide salvation for
them, or did He not? At this
point, those who reject Limited Atonement answer with an affirmative. Christ did indeed intend to
provide salvation
for all people. This theory of a General Atonement
can be expressed in the following molecular
statement.
Proposition
Two:
All persons are persons for whom Christ intended
to secure the provision of salvation.
Proposition One and Proposition Two directly
contradict each other.
Exactly one statement must be true and one must be false. To affirm both at the same time is
a logical impossibility. One
cannot hold to Limited Atonement and General Atonement
simultaneously. You may ask, But what about
Unconditional Election?
Unconditional Election is the teaching that God,
in eternity past, chose certain persons to be saved for reasons not
grounded in any foreseen merit or action on their part. According
to Unconditional Election, God always
planned to apply salvation to the elect, whom He chose for reasons
sufficient to Himself. The
strongest form of Unconditional Election states that one purpose of
Christ’s work was actually to secure the application of salvation to the
elect. This teaching could be
expressed in logical form in the following molecular
statement.
Proposition
Three:
Some persons are persons for whom Christ intended
to secure the application of salvation.
Proposition Three is not incompatible with either
Proposition One or Proposition Two for the simple reason that its predicate contains a different term. In the first two propositions, the
predicate is about those for whom Christ intended to provide salvation. In the third proposition, the
predicate is about those to whom Christ intended to apply salvation. In other words, Unconditional
Election is logically compatible with either Limited Atonement or General
Atonement. The vaunted
argument from logical consistency turns out to be a
mirage.
In fact, it is not an argument based upon logic at
all. It is an argument based
upon plausibility. The
statement that Christ would not die for someone whom He did not intend to
save is really not a statement about Christ. It is a statement about what the
speaker would do if he were in Christ’s place. The same is true of the statement
that Christ would not fail to elect someone for whom He shed His
blood. Such arguments sound
reasonable and they seem persuasive.
Upon examination, however, their persuasiveness is
found to be psychological rather than
logical. They are
speculations about how God would handle Himself if He were altogether such
an One as us.
Limited Atonement may or may not be true. If it is true, however, its truth
cannot be established by the “Appeal to Logical Consistency.” The truth of Limited Atonement (if
it be true) must be founded upon the statements of Scripture. The strongest case for Limited
Atonement would be made if its proponents could offer specific biblical
texts that named particular individuals or groups for whom Christ did not die to provide salvation. Barring such evidence, the best
that can be said for Limited Atonement is that it remains in
doubt.
|
This essay is by president of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of Central’s professors, students, or alumni necessarily agrees with every opinion that it
expresses. | |
|
|
From A. W. Tozer, Leaning Into the Wind (Wheaton, IL: Creation House, 1984), 23.
| |
|
Christianity as
Entertainment
A. W.
Tozer
Aside from a
few of the grosser sins, the sins of the unregenerated world are now
approved by a shocking number of professedly “born-again” Christians, and
copied eagerly. Young
Christians take as their models the rankest kind of worldlings and try to
be as much like them as possible.
Religious leaders have adopted the techniques of the advertisers;
boasting, baiting and shameless exaggerating are now carried on as a
normal procedure in church work.
The moral climate is not that of the New Testament, but that of
Most evangelicals no longer initiate; they imitate, and the world is their model. The holy faith of our fathers has in many places been made a form of entertainment, and the appalling thing is that all this has been fed down to the masses from the top.
| ||
|
|
Central
Baptist Theological Seminary of
Minneapolis | Contact Us |
|
