MJM

I thought I would give you something that helped me understand the matter a little better.

This is part of a mock debate between John Gerstner & RC Sproul.

"Dialogue on God’s Sovereignty and Predestination

Gerstner: "If God is sovereign, then it was determined from all eternity that you would be sitting here with me right now."

Sproul: "That makes me a robot."

Gerstner: "Well wait a minute. Are you telling me you didn't choose to come here tonight?"

Sproul: "I did."

Gerstner: "You weren't forced to come here against your will, were you? Did you have a sense of some force inhabiting your body, causing you to be here even though you had chosen not to be?"

Sproul: "No."

Gerstner: "Did you sense something interfering with your will, causing you to do something you didn't want to do, or had no intention of doing?"

Sproul: "No. But how could I have had any choice in the matter when God determined that I was going to be here?"

Gerstner: "But you just told me that you did choose to be here and exercised your will to come tonight. You did have a choice. You did exactly what you wanted to do. You weren't forced here against your will. So however God got you here, it wasn't by forcing you to be here against your will, as if moved involuntarily by a strong wind."

Gerstner's approach was to appeal to the objector's own experience, where they know infallibly that they haven't been forced to do anything against their will, but have always, in every case, done exactly what they had chosen to do. It's tough to keep up the robot argument in the face of that knowledge.

Tom