Calvinist Problem Passage: What Does It Mean to Fall Away? | Doug Wilson
Canon Press | 22 May 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWtuToAuGMA
Romans 8 says all who are predestined go to Heaven. It doesn't say all who are currently justified are actually predestined.
Nor that anyone will both be predestined and remain faithful without serious efforts.
John 10 has a disputed text. But if we take "no one can snatch them" as referring to the faithful, it could also refer to just the predestined faithful.
2:40 On this issue, Catholicism agrees.
The elect cannot be finally deceived. "will deceive even the elect" (in some measure, for some time) "if that were possible" (finally it isn't).
3:07 Or away from his own, right? PBH ...
3:14 For someone like Calvin, we believe he fell away, not from God's decree of election, which he hadn't, but from justification as well as from the Catholic faith. I mean John, not Calvin Smith. There is still hope for that man, as for Peppone's son Camillo Lenin Marx or whatever it was ...
3:57 Fall away from the Covenant.
Great. Now, is justification part of the covenant, specifically of the new covenant?
Therefore one can fall away from justification, whether one also falls away from the faith or not.
4:35 I would say, it definitely was a salvific attachment.
It would have saved them, had they been faithful. It was, in and of itself, in the process of saving them, and had saved them from sin, original and (if any) mortal.
Because, if it hadn't been salvific, if it hadn't put salvation within their reach, they wouldn't have been real branches.
5:46 "The assurance of salvation can never be attained by looking inside."
Prove there is an individual assurance, not reasonable prognostic, but quasi doctrinal, assurance of being among the elect?
The Council of Trent says, this assurance, not the prognostic, but the "this assurance is part of my faith" thing, like "I'm saved" = "Jesus rose" usually cannot be attained in this life. Exceptions being like people to whom God reveal the assurance, like St. Mary revealed eternal assurance to St. Bernadette (along with suffering in this life).
Show if you can that the Bible opposes this?
6:15 Oh, you alluded to the first Pope?
Wherefore, brethren, labour the more, that by good works you may make sure your calling and election. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time.
2 Peter 1:10
What was he saying again? "by good works" ...
Like, branches without fruit are cut off. People who give no alms end up among goats and not sheep. When we are justified, Ephesians 2, we are not so by any previous works of ours, but we are signing up for the good works that God has prepared for us that we should walk in them ....
2 Peter 1:10 seems perfectly Trentine Catholic to me. Like Eph 2:10 ends the dispute between Latomus and the man he got burned at Vilvoorde about Romans 3, and it's on Latomus' side, not Tyndale's.
6:26 Your practical solution is perfectly correct, it's also the one of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
7:04 Look to Christ is a great practical solution.
It's just that one way of doing so is ...
Itaque qui se existimat stare, videat ne cadat.
1 Corinthians 10:12 (I often find the Latin more easy to remember and to search)
Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall
Looking to Christ is a great way of doing that. But doing that is also a great way of looking to Christ.
In other words, avoiding mortal sins and repenting those one didn't avoid, if possible in confession, and doing good deeds isn't optional for the elect.
7:07 Yes, but our doctrinal position allows for formulating it.
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