That One Topic Everyone Likes to Avoid

Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.   

This is a quote from Charles Spurgeon, who is arguably one of the most quoted people within the Christian community.  He never attended theological school, but by the age of twenty-one, he was one of the best-known pastors in England. In fact, for the entire second half of the nineteenth century, he was the most popular pastor in England. He spoke to groups of 10,000 or more and his church was forced to move locations on many instances as it continued to outgrow buildings and meeting places. Spurgeon was considered to be the "People's Preacher" as he worked close to the churches and the people. He admonished the flaws within the English church and was against biblical criticism. 

This quote is short and seemingly straightforward, but it has the ability to launch hours worth of discussion.

Fourteen words. 

There are only fourteen words in the quote, and yet it says so much. 

Even if you don't believe in predestination, there's something unarguably true about this quote. We are sinful, disgusting, loathsome, and hopeless on our own. We who claim to be born again and proclaim to the world of our place with Christ still sin every single day. And we know we sin and we repent and do what we can to be as good as possible, but no matter what happens, we are still sinful. It's our own nature. 

And it is this principle that plays such a huge part in the Calvinist's argument. 

How could we, such sinful creatures, choose, in our own consciousness, something as pure and good as God? 

Our own free will will lead us to sin every time. It's just our nature. We have a sinful nature. God is the good in us and we all acknowledge that, yet for whatever reason, we seem to think that there is still enough good in us that on our own we are able to choose Christ. 

Last summer, I was involved in a Bible study in which we read The Potter's Freedom by James White. The book was actually written as a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. Geisler claims to be a "moderate Calvinist", accepting only one or two points from the Calvinist's five point system. I personally have not ready Geisler's book so I cannot give my own thoughts on it, but from what White quoted in his book and from what other people have said, it had very limited exegesis.  

But that's not what this post is about. 

I'm not going to openly say that I'm a Calvinist. Or that I'm an Arminian. Because honestly, I don't know. I lean towards the Calvinist worldview because of things I've read and discussions I've had and scripture I've studied, but there are still pieces that hang in the balance that make me not able to really settle that within myself. Yet. 

However, Calvinist or not, Spurgeon's quote is, at the very least, food for thought.