(Text as at 18/09/2007 23:48:29)
(For earlier versions of this Note, see the table at the end)
Did you believe in security of salvation?
This strikes me as rather an odd question. It’s true that I did accept this doctrine, and still think it’s a correct deduction from the New Testament teaching (assuming that the New Testament is univocal on the matter). However, what relevance has this to the case in hand? It’s not as though I was thinking whether I could get away with falling away in the moral sense and living a life of Riley on the premise that everything would be all right “up there”. I rather think that the NT teaching is that those who know the truth but don’t act on it are in for a good thrashing (in some spiritual sense; see Luke 12:47). No doubt there’s some dispensational way of weaselling out of this implication.
However, you can’t decide not to believe because you believe you have security of salvation; or at least not logically. Maybe if one believed in eternal conscious torment as punishment for reprobation, one might be frightened into not admitting your doubts, but this fear can’t stop you entertaining them.
However, you may have a point because I have admitted to an affinity with Aher1, and that “the Lord knows those that are his”, so ultimately I do have a conditional belief that if Christianity is true, then I’ll probably be all right, if I ever was all right. But I’ve always rejected Pascal’s Wager2 which assumes beliefs can be adopted or dropped at will, or should prudentially be adopted or rejected according to the consequences.
Date | Length | Title |
08/09/2007 16:55:12 | 1501 | Did I believe in security of salvation? |
06/09/2007 00:14:24 | 44 | Did I believe in security of salvation? |
Note last updated | Reading List for this Topic | Parent Topic |
---|---|---|
18/09/2007 23:48:29 | None available | Sylvia's Questions |
Aher | Pascal's Wager |
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
Sylvia's Questions |
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above.
© Theo Todman, June 2007 - Feb 2019. | Please address any comments on this page to theo@theotodman.com. | File output: Website Maintenance Dashboard | Return to Top of this Page | Return to Theo Todman's Philosophy Page | Return to Theo Todman's Home Page |