DOUBLE PREDESTINATION: (by R.C. SPROUL AND JOHN PIPER)

Listen to RC and John as they gave their answers to one of the most frequently questions about predestination.

[sydney.g.sloangammagee]

What a privileged to get to be the first & only to comment!!!

This is such a difficult doctrine to grasp, comprehend, understand & ultimately to even try to agreed with . . . you have to indeed be a committed Calvinist or Arminiam to really feel the need to understand this before you can even decide whether you do agree with it or not - since this is ultimately the primary defining factor as to whether you are a Calvinist or an Arminian.
John Piper is so easy to listen to, soothing & gentle voice yet confident in explaining this - thank you!!!

If I have properly followed how Calvinism & Arminian came into existence & how this dispute between them come to be . . . Admin never knew John Calvin, he was only about 6 years old when Calvin died . . . Calvin predecessor (?Boihain?) then had been leading the congregation for a couple decades while Admin grew up & became educated, evidently he was rather gifted & became popular to where it was eagerly desired for him to rise in the ranks to eventually take over the church, course not everyone was pleased with this, so some division began to arise . . . along these lines, the "predecessor" to Calvin seems to have been taking things a bit more extremely than what John Calvin had done in starting the church & there were those that were concerned by this & not wanting the changes to go too far from how Calvin had diligently taught them. Armin did not want to have division in the church, he did not want to offend the current church leaders or pastor, but he studied everything about John Calvin expository preaching, teaching, Bible Study notes, history, etc., everything he possibly could, so it became obvious to him that the concerns of church members for things being changed too much, to far off the usual path, needed to he addressed somehow, discussed & perhaps corrected if all who were in authority to do so were to agree - well, this didn't turn out to have the proper desired effect he had hoped for, of course. He now found himself having to prove himself as a Calvin loyalist moreso than to study, learn, teach, preach all while reuniting the congregation, instead the division became more severe - those who felt the church teaching was going too far away from the original Calvin teaching methods & doctrines now had proof vs. those who felt Admin only had ambitious designs to replace the current preacher & just came up with this stuff to achieve that objective. His efforts & theses were submitted to the appropriate leaders to be evaluated, judged & decided upon, preferably in a positive, reinforcing but uniting way - however, the current still felt threatened instead of respected & the process was delayed . . . Admin had severe health issues & did end up doing about the age of 50 . . . the evaluation decision was put off until it could no longer be ignored or swept away by the congregations tolerance - it was decided that Admin was a heretic & his theses were outright rejected, the church did result in a permanent division over time as a result. Ironically, Admin most likely adheres more closely to how Calvin actually taught the church from the start, than what results as Calvinism to this day.
By the way, the acronym for T.U.L.I.P. was not actually devised until 1930's, so had nothing to do with this church upheaval at the time . . . however, the more strict & extreme direction the predecessor was leading the doctrine of the church are more in line with what these extreme doctrinal changes were about that T.U.L.I.P. was generated from.

I found learning this background history absolutely fascinating . . . obviously confirms the confusion of Calvinists of Arminians assuming one another of being so completely different, when actually their roles are reversed from where you would expect for them to be . . . so many decades of distancing, who can possibly know if much of Calvin's original teaching is in which camp by now!!!