What Is Predestination? (Crucial Questions)

by R.C. Sproul

All the saints of history who believed that predestination belongs at the very heart of our understanding of Christianity—Augustine, Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards—believed just as strongly that great care must be taken in handling the doctrine, for it can be easily distorted and seriously misunderstood. Such misunderstandings can lead people into such a distorted view of God that He becomes almost demonic.

we must be extraordinarily sensitive and careful in how we handle this doctrine. It is profoundly important to our understanding of the character of God, His grace, and our own salvation, yet it is a volatile issue, and one by which many people have run into ruin by their lack of care in understanding it.

Every church and every Christian has some doctrine of predestination because the Bible has a doctrine of predestination. Any church body or individual Christian who takes seriously the contents of the New Testament must sooner or later struggle with this doctrine.

Paul is talking about salvation—a predestined salvation in which, from the foundation of the world, believers were chosen by God to be saved. What are we to make of this? If we are to grow in maturity in Christ, we must understand the biblical teaching on predestination. We may not like it at first, but with careful study and attention to the witness of Scripture, we can come to see the doctrine’s sweetness and its excellence and to experience it as a great comfort to our souls.

I will admit that I never have liked it much having been raised on the idea that Jesus stands at the door and knocks. I am interested to see how Sproule will reconcile this seeming contradiction.

Before any of us were born, our destinies were written by God before the foundation of the earth.

Seems to me to be a very thin line between fatalism and predistination.

With respect to salvation, the doctrine of predestination does not include the concept that every detail of our lives is foreordained and predestined by God. Rather, this doctrine deals with our ultimate destiny.

Certainly, every detail of our lives is foreordained by God, but that truth belongs more properly to the doctrine of God’s providence. The doctrine of predestination, in its initial form, does not include these particular elements in its scope (though they are true)....

Though all churches and Christians don’t agree about the nature of predestination, one point can be agreed on: God, in His sovereignty, in some way predestines who gets to heaven and who does not. That’s the simplest definition of predestination.

Virtually all of the errors that plague the church and her doctrine relate to one of two errors: either an underestimation of the greatness of God or an overestimation of the greatness of man.

What factor ultimately determines a person’s salvation? Is it the human decision and response, which God knows in advance, or is it God’s sovereign election, in which He brings people to faith in Jesus Christ? That is the essence of the controversy over predestination.