Sunday, August 29, 2010

I think there's value in debates (note that in Acts Apollos "vigorously refuted" the Jews) even if the person being debated never comes to know Christ.  The debates between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson, for instance, are valuable even if Hitchens never gets saved, for two reasons: they encourage believers regarding the reasonableness and coherence of our faith, and they are a tool of hardening those God wants to harden.  For some reason unknown to us God chooses to reveal his glory in judgment as well as in mercy, and just as the preaching of the Gospel is the means God uses to incline the hearts of the elect toward him, stuff like this can be the tool that God uses to harden the hearts of the reprobate.

2 comments:

Radagast said...

Debates are also important for the audience. Truth must be defended, and falsehood must be combated, at all costs.

"The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off, why should I? Light up the darkness." -- Bob Marley

John Roberts said...

WOO HOO! Gloriously well put.

I think it is, in some cases at least, to the glory of God when He chooses to display and/or prove the reprobate status of those He has turned over to a reprobate mind.