Skip to content

Add your phone number?

Optional. Nothing is sent unless you choose it.
The Historic Faith
Sign in

Jumpstarter 1 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion
Historic Christianity vs Calvinism  /  Lecture 9: The History and Dangers of Proof-texting  /  Discussion Questions
All Questions
Question 1
Lorraine Boettner claims predestination “was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the 4th century,” and that earlier fathers emphasized repentance, almsgiving, prayer, and baptism “as the basis of salvation”; what does that claim imply about God’s willingness to let the church be wrong for centuries, and how does that sit with your assumptions about God guiding His people?
Another way to ask: If predestination wasn’t closely studied until the late 300s and earlier leaders focused on repentance and baptism, does that mean God let the church be wrong for centuries? How does that fit with your belief about how God guides His people?

Direct Answer Boettner’s claim implies that God allowed the church to miss a “cardinal truth” for roughly three centuries, only “figuring it out” near the end of the 4th century, which presses you to assume God’s guidance of His people was either very delayed or very unclear. Finny presents this as a startling implication and uses it to challenge easy assumptions that “Calvinism = historic Christianity.”

Support from Transcript:

  • Boettner: “the doctrine of predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the 4th century.”
  • Boettner says earlier fathers emphasized “faith, repentance, almsgiving, prayers, submission to baptism…as the basis of salvation,” and assumed man had “full power to accept or reject the gospel.”
  • Boettner frames history as a “long, slow process” until the church “came to the great truth” of salvation as “a sovereign gift…fixed in eternity.”
  • Finny paraphrases: the early church “kind of missed the centrality of predestination,” then Augustine is where it “really starts.”
  • Finny treats this as “pretty interesting” and portrays Boettner’s storyline as the early church “got it wrong… and then this person comes out of nowhere.”
Discussion Follow-ups If you accept Boettner’s timeline, what does that do to your confidence in appealing to “historic Christianity”? If you reject it, what kind of guidance do you believe God provided in the first centuries?

Jumpstarter 1 of 10
Back Questions Next