Tuesday, August 29, 2006

"Theology Matters"

Here is a clip from the Dividing Line in which Dr. White deals with a Roman Catholic’s critique of the Evanjellycal doctrine of Once Saved, Always Saved. Although I believe that a Christian that is joined to Christ by faith must by necessity always be joined to Christ, most Evanjellycals do not have the solid foundation for believing such a teaching.

If a man may of his own libertarian free will believe in Christ, why is he not able to not believe? As Protestant apologist Norman Geisler has stated that a human is only truly human if he is truly free to choose and love of his own free will. Yet this foundation is simply not able to withstand the Roman Catholic apologist’s argument.

All the religions of men are man centered. Much of what passes, as sound teaching in Evangelicalism is simply man centered. I actually heard that men ought to do good because it is good for them preached recently.

The Law and Gospel is God centered. When a man comes to understand that God is glorifying Himself by redeeming a people in union with Christ to the praise of the glory of His grace, he will see the whole world in a radically new way.

Doctrine matters. Biblical theology matters. The Creeds and Confessions of the Reformation have stated what Protestants used to believe. They are a summary of what the Bible teaches and offer Protestants a tool with which to teach and understand. Perhaps we need to go back and understand why the Reformation happened to begin with.

Anyway, the clip is just that, a clip.

1 comment:

the forester said...

This is a useful test -- "Is that teaching man-centered, or God-centered?" It's true that men ought to do good because it's good for them, but that's certainly not the end of the story, nor is it even the best or most compelling part.