R.C. Sproul

And I think again we have to be honest at the outset and recognize that some tremendously important Christian leaders

who have had an enormous influence for good in the kingdom of God have not espoused the view that I will be setting forth in this seminar.

Let me just draw the scorecard for you.

and try to be fair, broad-minded, and all that.

And I'm gonna list on this side of the board the theologians in church history who on this question of predestination, in my judgment, would fall into the camp of the Augustinian view.

And then to balance it off, I'll try to mention the names of the theologians who fall on the other side.

So we'll look first of all on the pro side of the pro-Augustinian view.

Now remember, we haven't really defined the Augustinian view.

This is still background.

We'll get into what that view actually is.

Those that follow Augustine in the doctrine of predestination

would include, and this may surprise you, and this may even be challenged by some, but first let's put Augustine himself since he did believe what he himself taught.

So we'll put Augustine at the top of the list.

Then I would say Augustine's perhaps most eminent disciple with respect to theology in general and even these doctrines in particular.

In my judgment, the man belongs on this side of the column, St.

Thomas Aquinas.

Francis Schaeffer, I can almost hear him screaming at me from heaven right now because he would certainly not agree that Aquinas belongs in that category.

but remember that Aquinas himself indicated his indebtedness to Augustine more than to any other theologian in church history.

But since St.

Thomas Aquinas is the supreme theologian of the Roman Catholic Church, and since contemporary Roman Catholic theology does not embrace the Augustinian view of predestination, Protestants generally make the assumption that therefore St.