R.C. Sproul

who the greatest ten theologians were in history, at least 98 out of that 100 would mention these five in the ten.

I mean, here are recognizably five titans and giants of the Christian faith.

And if they all agree on espousing the Augustinian view of predestination, does that mean that the Augustinian view of predestination is the correct one?

Absolutely not, because these five men disagreed on many things, and though they agree on the essence of this particular matter, there's no guarantee that their views individually or collectively are the first.

We carry no brief for the infallibility of human tradition or for the infallibility of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, none of that, or even all of them together.

But I'll say this, when those five agree on something, it gets my attention, okay?

All right, let's take a few minutes then to do some basic definitions.

The word predestination in English is made up of a prefix and a root.

The prefix pre- means before.

And the word destination is a word we're all familiar with in the English language.

Many of you came to Ligonier this week because Ligonier was your destination.

It was the place to which you were going.

Anytime you make travel reservations with your travel agent, the thing they want to know is what is your destination?

That is, where are you headed?

Where do you hope to end up?

Now, when we're talking about the doctrine of predestination,

We are not talking specifically about questions of whether or not God directly caused an automobile accident to take place, or if you were determined in advance to be sitting in the chair in which you are sitting right now.

The doctrine of predestination is concerned specifically with the question of our ultimate destination.

There are only two destinations open to us as human beings.

Ultimately, they are heaven or hell.