So, I finally finished the chapter on Unconditional Election. Did I mention that the chapter was 165 pages in length? Since it is so long, I could not do justice to the chapter in one, two or even more blog posts.The summary of the chapter I will try to give is this: and I quote (that's what the little quotation marks mean), "The basic error of Calvinism is confounding election and predestination with salvation." The basic premise, in my words, is that whenever those words are used, the individual 'salvation' of the person is not in question, but rather the results: Predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ means that the believer was fore-ordained to become conformed to His image - not that the person was fore-ordained to believe.
The last section of the book was on infant baptism. I was surpised to find out that according to Vance - who would have used as much ammo as he had in his arsenal - many Calvinists are actually quite against the idea that an infant that dies in infancy is actually not part of the "elect." Spurgeon actually was very adamant about that point. He believed that all infants that die would not perish. This actually is more in line with Calvinism than other explanations I had heard. Some would teach that if the child's parents were part of the elect, then they could be confident that there children were too. But it seems that this flies directly in the face against their Calvinist Theology of Unconditional Election. This is putting the Election as being Conditioned on the faith of the parents!
Anyway... What do we know for sure? Man without God is without hope. He is not willing that any should perish. Salvation is of the Lord. I could go on and on, but eventually the verses that people like to contend about will be too much and fights will break out, etc...
Just a thought...
