a. Sovereign Grace

a. Sovereign Grace

The overarching them of this philosophy is something termed Sovereign Grace.  This philosophy states that God is Sovereign, and because He demonstrated His sovereignty is some things, He is sovereign in all things, including who will and will not receive Him as Lord and Saviour. 

The first theological problem here is that God never called Himself Sovereign.  He did demonstrate that He is sovereign in some things, but never declared He is sovereign in all things.  To the contrary, He expressly declared He is not sovereign in all things:

Psalms 115:16  The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

Sovereign Grace philosophy includes the belief that there is no such thing as Free Will.  Going back to biblical definitions, the will, by definition, is free.  A will means you have choice, the power to decide what you will and will not do.  To argue there is no free will is to argue there is no will at all. 

God clearly expressed the following about His will: God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. The grace of God hath appeared unto all men.  God commandeth all men every where to repent.  God will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. Therefore if God were sovereign in the matter of Salvation, then all men would be saved.  If God is sovereign in the matter of salvation, He is unjustly condemning millions to an eternity in the Lake of Fire because He will not allow them to repent. This is not holy, loving, or true. 

Total Depravity