Title: Common Objections to Predestination
Text: Romans 8:28-30
Upon encountering the doctrine of predestination there are many questions that come up almost immediately. Having dealt with most of these questions from my own mind, I seek here to give both the most common questions and the best answers I can to them.
If predestination is true, why do we evangelize?
If ever there was a question that most people asked when faced with the biblical doctrine of God’s sovereignty this is the one. It simply stands to reason, for most, that if God has ordained the salvation of His elect people then our evangelism efforts are really in vain.
The answer that I, and most who believe in predestination, would give is that God ordains “means” as well as the “end” in His program of salvation. Sometimes when I say this I see people’s eyes roll because they either do not understand the answer or they think it is some type of copout.
But this is a legitimate answer. In fact, it is the right answer. God has ordained the end. He doesn’t just “know” the end from the beginning, He has ordained it. Nothing happens apart from His sovereign decree. Even Satan could not touch Job apart from the sovereign decree of God. God has determined the end, and the end for the elect is eternal life. But God has also ordained the means to that end, which is evangelism.
Now let’s look at this from a purely physical perspective to give an example. Most conservative Christians believe that their physical lives come as a result of God’s decree. No one is born on accident. God is the one who formed us in our mother’s womb. It is He who planned our birth day.
But, at the same time, we weren’t born without the use of natural “means”. In history there has been only one documented case of parthenogenesis (virgin birth) in human beings. Of course I refer to Jesus Christ. Everyone else has come by the “means” of natural procreation, the union between a man and a woman. Without those means we would not be born. Yet this doesn’t mean that our birth was not ordained by God. It most certainly was.
Likewise without evangelism no one would ever be born again because that is the means God has ordained to bring about His end. No one has ever been saved apart from evangelism of some kind. It is God who gives us the ability to have faith and the preaching of the Word that gives us an object for that faith. Evangelism is a necessary “means” to the “end” of salvation of God’s elect.
Does predestination mean that I do not have a will?
This requires an understanding of the will, and how it relates to man’s desires. The ‘will’, as described by Jonathan Edwards, is simply ‘the mind making a choice’. And we all have the ability to make choices. But the issue comes when someone says that the will is ‘free’. It is here that we have a problem.
The will is ‘free’ in the sense that it always chooses according to its strongest desires in any given situation. If a person points a gun at us and says, “Give me your money or die” we don’t ‘want’ to give him our money. But ultimately we want to live more, so we give him our money. Thus the will is in action.
But where the will is not ‘free’ is that man’s desires are sinful, thus his will is bound. Something that is bound in sin, as Scripture clearly indicates of our desires, could not be considered ‘free’. It is like the illustration of a person skydiving. He has the capacity to motivate himself north, south, east and west. But ultimately he is always going down.
This relates to predestination in this way. Man, by nature, does not choose God because he does not naturally desire to do so. In fact, he is at enmity with God and instead would rather worship an idol or himself than the true God.
So, in response to the question: yes, man has a will. This will is in bondage to sin. It requires an act of God’s grace to free that will so that it may believe in Him. All true believers should rejoice that God has set them free.
Doesn’t predestination mean that God is unfair?
Again, this is a common question. We must remember, as a disclaimer, that God is under no obligation to be fair by our standards in the first place. Whatever he does is good and right, not because of a ‘higher’ standard of good and right is above Him, but because He is the standard of all that is good and right.
If God were holding back people who wanted to come to Him and dragging in people who didn’t want to come to Him (a classic misrepresentation of the Reformed position) then that would be seemingly unfair. The actual case, however, according to the text is that we are God’s enemies. He is in no way obligated to save us. He chooses by His grace to save an elect people for Himself. This in no way forces Him to give that grace to all people.
Consider this illustration: If a king, who had been away at war, returned to his castle to see that it was being overrun by robbers and pillaged he could have them all punished by the sword. This would be justice. He could, on the other hand have them all set free and choose that none would receive justice. This also is his right, yet it doesn’t satisfy justice. Or he could have his men go in and take some captive to display his mercy and then have the rest executed to show his justice and wrath. In none of these cases could he be seen as unjust, as they all deserved his wrath – none sought his mercy – yet some received because it was his good pleasure to bestow it upon them.
Just remember this question when the question of fairness arises: Is it fair that God gives grace to you, who have heard the gospel numerous times, yet the person who never has the opportunity (the man in India, for instance) gets justice? This is a problem that both the person who holds to predestination and the person who rejects it have to deal with. If a person who never hears gets justice, how is this fair outside of divine election?
“The marvel of marvels is not that God, in his infinite love, has not elected all this guilty race to be saved, but that he has elected any.” --B. B.WARFIELD
Worse than unfair, doesn’t predestination make God capricious and arbitrary?
How does God elect, if it is not based upon some foreseen merit in us? Does He just draw straws? Does He pick a certain hair or body color? Is He whimsical? This allegation is often levied against God by those who deny predestination. But I insist that God is perfect and absolute. And a perfect and absolute being cannot, I repeat cannot, be arbitrary. Whatever God does He has purpose in, and though we may not know His purpose in election, this does not mean that God is wrong in His purpose.
Ephesians chapter 1 tells us how God chooses. It says (v.5) “he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Right off the bat we see that His choice was according to His purpose. It was not purposeless. It was not pointless. It was not without proper motivation. But there is more. Verse 11 seals this truth by saying, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will”. This verse tells us that God’s purpose is worked by His own ‘counsel’. Now, people who are capricious and whimsical do not take counsel. There is no direction or advice. Decisions are made by whim only – and these people are hardly respectable. But God’s will is the greatest counsel in the universe, and it is upon the counsel of His will that He has chosen us. Just because His reason for choosing us is not found inherent within us doesn’t mean He had no purpose in it.
Does predestination mean that babies can be lost if not predestined?
The simple answer is that no one knows absolutely from Scripture what happens to infants who die in infancy. I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are in heaven. But this is based upon very little scriptural evidence and more upon my tradition and opinion. I look to Jesus words concerning the children being those who the Kingdom belongs to and David’s words concerning his infant child as my comforting passages.
But what most people must realize is that the question of infant salvation is not one that falls under the category of predestination, yet somehow it always ends up there. I have heard many sermons attacking predestination that say, “All people who believe predestination believe babies are going to hell”. This is not true. John Macarthur, a professed believer in predestination, wrote a book called, “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” which attempts to provide scriptural evidence for the fact that children who die in infancy are secure in heaven.
The issue of infant salvation has defenders and detractors on both sides of the predestination camp. This, again, is because of the lack of clear biblical statements concerning infant death. It is an issue that really has nothing to do with predestination.
There is one thing I would like to add, however. I believe that the predestination side has a much stronger reason for believing in infant salvation than does the other side. This is because it is the predestination side that contends that salvation is wholly of God. It is the other side who says that we must fulfill a requirement to be saved. If a child cannot fill the requirement then the other side is in real trouble.
What if a person genuinely comes to Christ, but is not predestined, what then?
This question is truly based upon ignorance of the subject, but because I have heard it asked so many times I want to address it. Reformed theology states that if a person genuinely comes to Christ it is because that person has been effectually called by God to salvation. No one can come apart from that calling (John 6:37;44;65).
The Bible declares that “there is no God seeker” (Romans 3:11). If a person comes it is because God has taken from them their heart of stone and given them a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). So, plainly stated, if a person comes it is a result of their predestination, so this question becomes unimportant.
One thing to note, however. I believe that most any person in the Reformed community would agree that if a person was able to muster faith within their heart apart from the predestination of God that God would accept that person. However, I believe just as strongly that no one could do that because it is not within the nature of man to do so. He is by nature a child of wrath (Eph 2:3).
If predestination is biblical, why do so many Bible preachers deny it?
I cannot speak to the heart of every other teacher/preacher in the world. But I can say why I denied it for years.
The first reason was my own ignorance of my ignorance. I truly didn’t know what I didn’t know! I thought I had a right view of predestination that answered every question concerning the doctrine. That is until someone began questioning me about important texts such as Romans 9, John 6, Ephesians 1, and so on. I had two or three verses that I though denied predestination but they didn’t answer whole chapters I was then reading.
I also feared the doctrine. I believed that if I it were true it would destroy my evangelistic spirit (it has actually done the opposite). I had a seminary teacher tell me how unbiblical it was and how it destroyed churches. I was genuinely surprised when I started finding out that whole church movements were centered on these doctrines and that some of the greatest church revivals were spawned by men who believed these very truths. Jonathon Edwards, who was instrumental in the Great Awakening” was adamant on his view of predestination. I started learning that many of these men who were making me afraid were themselves very ignorant of the subject. Ignorance almost always inspires fear.
The second reason was my traditional understanding of certain biblical texts. If ever a biblical text has been quoted to deny predestination it is 2 Peter 3:9 (ESV) “The Lord is… not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” This verse had me stumped for a while, until I actually went back and read it in its entirety. It actually says more than most people allow it to. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” In case you missed it the ‘any’ and the ‘all’ receive a qualifier if the whole sentence is read together. It says that God is patient towards ‘us’. That is never discussed when this verse is cited by those who hold the other viewpoint. And I will illustrate its absolute importance: If we were traveling in a car and I said, “I want ‘us’ to be safe. All put on your seatbelts I don’t want there to be any hurt in an accident.” Do my words modify the ‘any’ and the ‘all’? Yes they do. It stops being universal and begins to have in scope the people to whom I am referring. The ‘us’ in 2 Peter 3:9 refers to the elect – and it is a fact that there are not going to be any of the elect who perish, for all will ultimately come to repentance.
Why do so many teachers deny these truths? I have heard many arguments. “It ruins missions” says one person. Then we find that William Carrey, the “Father of Modern Missions”, believed in predestination. “It undermines the wonder of God’s grace” says another. Then we find out that John Newton, who wrote “Amazing Grace” also believed in predestination. Still another says, “It was a heresy invented by John Calvin”. This is wholly untrue as even the church fathers like Augustine believed in this doctrine. [What’s funny is that people who accuse the doctrine of predestination of having no historical support normally ascribe to the ‘Pre-Trib Rapture Theory’, itself a doctrine that is less than 200 years old.] Another has said, “There is no way a rational person can believe in predestination”. This amazes me because of such men as B.B. Warfield who was the principal of Princeton Seminary from 1887 to 1921, and also believed this doctrine. Others like Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon and many more were all brilliant as well. It is equally amazing that, while today many in the Southern Baptist church deny predestination, when the original charter of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary was adopted in 1858, every professor at the institution was required to teach according to the “Abstract of Principles”, a document that clearly teaches predestination.
Finally, a personal note. Of all the debates I have heard, and sermons I have listened to from both sides, I have become convinced that one side deals with text and the other side (more often than not) engages in ad hominem and strawmen argumentation. This was what finally led me into my understanding of Reformed Theology. One must be honest with the text. If we seek to exegete the text properly, outside of our tradition, there can be only one answer in my humble opinion. I recommend “Chosen By God” (Sproul), “The Potter’s Freedom” (White) and “The Sovereignty of God” (Pink) for more on the Reformed perspective.
