RC Sproul – Don’t meddle with the Westminster Confession of Faith

Don’t meddle with the Westminster Confession of Faith,

Especially the very first section which deals with God’s eternal decrees.   Chapter 3 “Of God’s Eternal Decree” (the Westminster Confession of Faith) begins as follows:

 I. God from all eternity did by the most and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass…

III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

http://www.creeds.net/Westminster/c03.htm

Please listen very carefully how Dr. RC Sproul, a very devout and staunch Calvinist, used the above confession to humiliate 50 Arminian students.  [DTW note:  We here at DTW are not Arminian (aka Methodist), we believe in Eternal Security.]

I responded as follows on their Ligounier website feedback page.

Allow me to mimic Dr. RC Sproul’s Lieutenant Columbo routine which he used so wonderfully entertainingly at the 2001 Birmingham Conference “Chosen by God.”

There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? If God’s absolute authority and sovereignty, and yes even his very godhood, are constituted by his divine foreordination and decrees of whatsoever comes to pass, then it follows that the 50 students who did not agree with Dr. RC Sproul are Arminians by divine design and predestination (fore-ordination). Therefore Dr. RC Sproul who is supposed to honor and respect God’s sovereign decrees has no right whatsoever to call or change them into atheists. What God has decreed cannot be rescinded, overturned or changed (remember the word “unchangeably” in the Westminster Confession of Faith?).

If Dr. Sproul, a man of dust and ashes who is going to be eaten up by maggots, is able to change God’s decrees then He’s not sovereign over everything that happens and if He’s not sovereign over everything that happens He’s not God. If you can alter whatsoever God ordains to come to pass, you don’t believe in a sovereign God and if you don’t believe in a sovereign God, you don’t believe in God. Its that simple! Do I hear a hint of exasperation? Wouldn’t that make Dr. RC Sproul an atheist? “He just called me an atheist and I’ve always believed that I’m a good Calvinist.” I don’t hear any laughter now! Do you?

Apparently Dr. Sproul doesn’t believe that God decreed the 50 students to be the sinful Arminians that they are and therefore would like to change them into elected Calvinists who are not Atheists. Not even God can do that because if He does He will be overriding his own eternal decrees. Remember the word “unchangeably” in the Westminster Confession of Faith?

Any disregard for God’s sovereignty is blasphemy and yet RC Sproul glibly calls the 50 students atheists whom God Himself has ordained to be Arminians. Shame on you RC. You are not practicing what you’re preaching.

And that, my dear friends, is how you avoid being painted into a corner. Don’t mess with the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is unchangeable because God Himself has decreed it so.