There is a profound pain in the
contemplation of eternal conscious suffering. This truth, admittedly, is deeply
disturbing. At the same time, however, it is designed by God into his eternal
plan as cause for worship. The complex and wrenching realities of eternal punishment
are resolved in one distinct and all-pervasive truth—the eternal God is
absolutely sovereign and does what he wills for his own glory (Dan. 4:35).
This doctrine is the most emotionally difficult
truth to believe. (John MacArthur, “Foreword,” in Peter Sammons, Reprobation
and God’s Sovereignty: Recovering a Biblical Doctrine [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Kregel Academic, 2022], 9)
God’s will is determinative,
causative, and supreme over human will. (Peter Sammons, Reprobation and God’s
Sovereignty: Recovering a Biblical Doctrine [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic,
2022], 87)
[T]he Bible was written to the elect,
. . . (Peter Sammons, Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty: Recovering a
Biblical Doctrine [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2022], 119)
[T]he Reformed position affirms that
God regenerates the heart and will, which precede and produces faith. (Peter
Sammons, Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty: Recovering a Biblical Doctrine [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2022], 86)
“The Reformed view . . . teaches that
before a person can choose Christ . . . he must be born again . . . one does
not first believe and then become reborn . . . A cardinal doctrine of Reformed
theology is the maxim, “Regeneration precedes faith.” R. C. Sproul, Chosen
by God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1986), 10, 72. “A man is not regenerated
because he has first believed in Christ, but he believes in Christ because has
been regenerated.” Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (1930; repr.,
Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1984), 55. “Regeneration logically must initiate faith.”
John MacArthur, The Gospel According to the Apostles (Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 2000), 62. “When Christ called to Lazarus to come out of the grave,
Lazarus had no life in him so that he could hear, sit up, and emerge. There was
not a flicker of life in him. If he was to be able to hear Jesus calling him
and to go to Him, then Jesus would have to make him alive. Jesus resurrected
him and then Lazarus could respond. [Similarly,] the unsaved, the unregenerate,
is spiritually dead (Eph. 2). He is unable to ask for help unless God changes
his heart of stone into a heart of flesh, and makes him alive spiritually (Eph.
2:5). Then, once he is born again, he can for the first time turn to Jesus,
expressing sorrow for his sins and asking Jesus to save him.” Edwin H. Palmer, The
Five Points of Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972), 18-19. “Abraham Kuyper
observed that, prior to regeneration, a sinner ‘has all the passive properties
belonging to a corpse . . . [Therefore] every effort to claim for the sinner
the minutest co-operation in this first grace destroys the gospel, severs the
artery of the Christian confession and is anti-scriptural in the highest
degree.’ Like a spiritual corpse, he is unable to make a single move toward
God, think a right through about God, or even respond to God—unless God first
brings the this spiritually dead corpse to life.” James Montgomery Boice and
Philip Graham Ryken, The Doctrines of Grace: Rediscovering the Evangelical
Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2002), 74. (Ibid., 86 n. 9)
[I]n this view, God determines the secondary
means of bringing about those ends, regarding his direct involvement. (Peter
Sammons, Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty: Recovering a Biblical Doctrine [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2022], 114)
Causality with respect to sin is
always done via secondary agency, whereby it is important to remember that “God
is the Creator of all the wicked, not their wickedness; He is the Author of
their being, not the Infuser of their sin. God does not (as we have been
slanderously reported to affirm) compel the wicked to sin, as a rider spurs on
an unwilling horse.” (Pink, The Sovereignty of God, 101) (Ibid., 125)
Despite God’s determination of all
events, every secondary cause (actions performed by God’s creation) is truly
real. Both of these truths intertwine to make the double helix of
compatibilism. God’s predetermined plan is compatible with human will and
actions. So humans never act contrary to God’s eternal plan, and humans never
act contrary to his own desire. (Ibid., 135)
Many who object to reprobation do so
on the basis of a misunderstanding (or misrepresentation) of compatibilism. They
often confuse compatibilism with immediate agency, thereby making God the
author of sin. This objection generally does not allow for the distinction between
primary and secondary causes, which often leads to even more confusion. (Ibid.,
175)
On
Ezek 14:9-11:
Others might argue that God merely “allows”
the false prophet to lie. They would say, “God permitted these
enticements to test the people’s loyalty.” Nevertheless, to take this position is
to portray God as a spectator to the events that occur in his world, contrary
to Ephesians 1:11. Rather than actively governing, this idea suggests that God
passively consents—at least when it comes to sin. But again, the text does not
allow for this. On the contrary, the text expressly establishes just the
opposite: when Ezekiel 14:9 uses the phrase “I, the LORD,” it is like using a
reflexive pronoun to say “I, myself” in order to make an emphatic point. God
doesn’t tell Ezekiel, “It is I who have persuaded,” but instead he says, “It is
I, the Lord, who have persuaded.” This double reference to himself shows that
God is actively presiding over the lie that false prophets speak. God has no
problem with taking credit for this situation; and if he doesn’t, neither should
we hesitate to give it to him. (Ibid., 269-70)
When it comes to theological categories
of causation, theologians note the following categories:
1. Ultimate
cause. The ultimate cause of every action that occurs in the world is God,
who providentially governs all actions for his purposes (cf. Eph. 1:11; Rom.
11:36).
2. Proximate cause. The
proximate cause of an action is the agent, human or otherwise, who influences,
directs, or enables an action.
3. Efficient cause. The
efficient cause of an action is the agent, human, or otherwise, who directly
carries out the action. (Ibid., 270, emphasis in bold added)
