Sovereign Grace Baptist Church Meets weekly at 907 Hillsboro Boulevard, Manchester, TN, 37355. Currently, our church is without a pastor/elder and the members meet weekly for praise and worship in hymn, prayer, reading of Scripture, study of the word, and fellowship.
I am often asked, “How can you be so dogmatic about your views, when great minds have been divided over issues for so long?”
Part of my response to that question is to ask, “Do you, the questioner, not hold some things dogmatically?” “Is there really any doctrine that has not been divided?” “Does this mean we cannot be dogmatic about anything?”
Well, let me address this question as best I can.
I am dogmatic about all my beliefs. Not that my beliefs are set in stone and cannot change, but that what I believe, I believe with all my heart. If were dogmatic with the blind devotion of not allowing the evidence to dictate my beliefs, I would still be a free-will worshiping, salvation losing, God-controlling, Charismatic Arminian. I was once dogmatic about those beliefs, too. Happily, God has led me to greater evidence for the views I hold today, and the fact that I have changed over the years, at least shows this much, that I am open to change!
Many of those who oppose my staunch Calvinism are often people who claim, "This is what my church believes, this is what my Papa believed, this is what we’ve been taught to believe," etc., and manifest a defiant attitude to anything not resembling their position. This does not show them to be wrong, merely methodologically challenged, and that, severely.
Now, let me presume that my real or imagined interlocutor is genuinely open to the evidence, then, I have some questions for them to ponder:
Why do you believe what you believe?
I believe what I believe is grounded in Scripture and is faithful to it. If that is the case I would be foolish not to embrace it dogmatically. To assume otherwise would be to cast doubt over God’s revelation in terms of perspicuity and coherency. For example, there are some fellow-Calvinists that affirm “Free Will” along with their equally stated commitment to predestination. To me this is problematic. First, where in the Bible is a definition or a statement that supports free will? Moreover, to assert free will from passages that merely describe persons making choices is to assert something about how those choices are made. In light of this, it proves to be an impossible position for it requires omniscience for one to claim that no determining influence has decidedly moved the willer one way or another. To claim to know that is claiming too much. I do not require the same depth of knowledge to be certain of predestination. I can appeal to direct passages, E phesi ans 1:5, 11, Rom ans 8:28-30, as examples, and I am not required to know all things to know that a determinate inluence has indeed be decidedly effective in moving my will one way or another. God has done so, as Phili ppian s 2:13, or Ac ts 13:46-48 clearly affirms. So in light of issues such as this, I am certain, that my fellow Calvinists are inconsistent, and I am dogmatically so.
Remember Martin Luther, “If I am not convinced by scripture and sound reason, I will not recant. Here I stand.” Aren’t we all glad he took a dogmatic stance? I, for one, am absolutely glad he did, as did Paul before him. My inclination is to cast my lot with them.
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