Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Mr. Andy Underhile: Divine Election Implies Rejection


By Mr. Andy Underhile
http://andycontramundum.blogspot.com/2012/06/selection-implies-rejection.html

Selection Implies Rejection
 
Again, we will take up the ever popular doctrine of reprobation. One of the more common ways of delineating the doctrine is to affirm something like this: Predestination of the elect is an intentional choice of God; whereas reprobation is merely a permissive choice, leaving them to their own devices with no active participation on the part of God in the preterition of the reprobate. In simpler terms, it is asserted that God actively chooses the elect for salvation, but the reprobate He merely passes over. I have long struggled to see the logic in such a suggestion. Some 1800 years ago, Tertullian wrote what seems to me to be the logical downfall of such an assertion. He says “for selection implies rejection.”

What could be clearer? If you are offered the chicken or the fish, and you choose the fish, you have ipso facto, rejected the chicken. What difference is there between rejecting it and passing it over? You have no chosen it. That is what rejection means: not choosing something. Again Tertullian says, “A preference for the one is not possible without slighting the other, and no choice can be made without a rejection. He who selects some one out of many, has already slighted the other which he does not select.”
 
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