http://www.christianforums.com/t7822080/
Dear Writer,
It would seem our esteemed CF chaplain may be a wee bit confused about this matter. Allow me to clear it up for you and anyone else reading here, since by the logic of this response, one may as well say apostasy doesn't exist at all.
The term "apostasy" refers to "departing from" or leaving. Leaving what? Well, that's up for discussion. Some use the term to refer to leaving the fold -- the community of other believers with whom one has been in "fellowship." Others use the term to refer to quitting the Christian faith itself. Since both your question and the response seemed to favour this latter definition, we will focus there.
The problem with your chaplain's response is that it states only those not "regenerated" could quit the faith, because they never had a genuine faith in the first place. This is completely illogical. Obviously if you have never been to Michigan, you can't leave Michigan, either. If you never held a rare pearl in your hands you could not have thrown one away. To state first that only those regenerated are "true" believers, and next that only those not regenerated -- who thus, by definition, did not have the actual faith and were not in the actual community/Kingdom to begin with -- could throw away what they never had and leave a place where they never arrived, is utterly absurd.
Is it true that if you were not "regenerated," you didn't have the faith and were not in the koinonia to begin with? According to the bible, it is. If I had two hours to kill and were thoroughly bored to the point anything would amuse me, I could list at least two dozen NT verses to support that statement, but I don't (have the time), and I'm not (that bored).
There's only one verse in scripture that explicitly states something along the lines of "those who went out from among us were never really of us to begin with." (1 John 2:19) However, since that particular verse in context reveals that John is referring to the emergence of "many antichrists" and not to the "great falling away" Paul speaks about in Thessalonians, it's not actually germane to this subject. Wolves in sheeps' clothing, or those among a group who are not actually in, with, or of that group, is a completely different situation altogether from apostasy or leaving a group of which you were actually part.
Still, some people erroneously refer to this verse as support for the idea that the only ones who can ever depart from faith are those who never had it. By twisting the verse this way, they end up annihilating several principles of sound soteriology while turning apostasy itself into something which actually does not exist. I maintain you cannot depart from somewhere you have never been in the first place. If apostasy is "turning away from," and what is being "turned away from" is something the person in question had never actually embraced in the first place, then the "turning away" itself isn't real in that case -- and if that's the working definition for "apostasy," it means there is no such thing as actual apostasy.
Obviously that cannot be the correct answer. One simply cannot turn away from something one never actually embraced, or give up something one never actually acquired in the first place. So if apostasy is to be something real at all, it must refer to a real believer who is really in the faith -- not merely mentally assenting to doctrines or blindly following parental inculcation and forced sectarian enculturization -- who turns away from it, away from somewhere he has actually been: in the faith.
Now to your question, what happens to such people? Well, if you read your NT Bible the answer is clear: they go to hell. They are judged irredeemable and irrevocably so, and cut off from God forever in his wrath, sentenced to torture for all eternity. We can argue for years over whether this is rational, healthy, loving, compassionate, fair and/or just, or not, but that's the upshot of it. "The fearful and unbelieving will have their place in the lake of fire ..."
I notice your question was predicated on the presupposition that one's salvation cannot be lost. Faulty premises lead to flawed conclusions. If salvation cannot be lost or discarded, that would mean apostasy does not exist. Yet you know it exists or you would not have asked about it. If you are genuinely curious about what might happen to cause a person to choose to depart from their faith and salvation, and if you are capable of engaging in compassionate, self-detached, objective dialogue (without passing judgment on the other party or giving in to the urges to tell them off, make hell threats, or try to convince them how much they are wrong), you might want to find some people who have had that specific experience, and ask them about it one-on-one. What changed for them? What happened to make them change their minds? The answers are probably nowhere near as scary and diabolical as you imagine -- and could surprise you.
Blessings!
Sincerely,
Your Clandestine CF Chaplain and Bane of Shoddy Theology Everywhere
Response:
Not even close....
Dear Writer,
It would seem our esteemed CF chaplain may be a wee bit confused about this matter. Allow me to clear it up for you and anyone else reading here, since by the logic of this response, one may as well say apostasy doesn't exist at all.
The term "apostasy" refers to "departing from" or leaving. Leaving what? Well, that's up for discussion. Some use the term to refer to leaving the fold -- the community of other believers with whom one has been in "fellowship." Others use the term to refer to quitting the Christian faith itself. Since both your question and the response seemed to favour this latter definition, we will focus there.
The problem with your chaplain's response is that it states only those not "regenerated" could quit the faith, because they never had a genuine faith in the first place. This is completely illogical. Obviously if you have never been to Michigan, you can't leave Michigan, either. If you never held a rare pearl in your hands you could not have thrown one away. To state first that only those regenerated are "true" believers, and next that only those not regenerated -- who thus, by definition, did not have the actual faith and were not in the actual community/Kingdom to begin with -- could throw away what they never had and leave a place where they never arrived, is utterly absurd.
Is it true that if you were not "regenerated," you didn't have the faith and were not in the koinonia to begin with? According to the bible, it is. If I had two hours to kill and were thoroughly bored to the point anything would amuse me, I could list at least two dozen NT verses to support that statement, but I don't (have the time), and I'm not (that bored).
There's only one verse in scripture that explicitly states something along the lines of "those who went out from among us were never really of us to begin with." (1 John 2:19) However, since that particular verse in context reveals that John is referring to the emergence of "many antichrists" and not to the "great falling away" Paul speaks about in Thessalonians, it's not actually germane to this subject. Wolves in sheeps' clothing, or those among a group who are not actually in, with, or of that group, is a completely different situation altogether from apostasy or leaving a group of which you were actually part.
Still, some people erroneously refer to this verse as support for the idea that the only ones who can ever depart from faith are those who never had it. By twisting the verse this way, they end up annihilating several principles of sound soteriology while turning apostasy itself into something which actually does not exist. I maintain you cannot depart from somewhere you have never been in the first place. If apostasy is "turning away from," and what is being "turned away from" is something the person in question had never actually embraced in the first place, then the "turning away" itself isn't real in that case -- and if that's the working definition for "apostasy," it means there is no such thing as actual apostasy.
Obviously that cannot be the correct answer. One simply cannot turn away from something one never actually embraced, or give up something one never actually acquired in the first place. So if apostasy is to be something real at all, it must refer to a real believer who is really in the faith -- not merely mentally assenting to doctrines or blindly following parental inculcation and forced sectarian enculturization -- who turns away from it, away from somewhere he has actually been: in the faith.
Now to your question, what happens to such people? Well, if you read your NT Bible the answer is clear: they go to hell. They are judged irredeemable and irrevocably so, and cut off from God forever in his wrath, sentenced to torture for all eternity. We can argue for years over whether this is rational, healthy, loving, compassionate, fair and/or just, or not, but that's the upshot of it. "The fearful and unbelieving will have their place in the lake of fire ..."
I notice your question was predicated on the presupposition that one's salvation cannot be lost. Faulty premises lead to flawed conclusions. If salvation cannot be lost or discarded, that would mean apostasy does not exist. Yet you know it exists or you would not have asked about it. If you are genuinely curious about what might happen to cause a person to choose to depart from their faith and salvation, and if you are capable of engaging in compassionate, self-detached, objective dialogue (without passing judgment on the other party or giving in to the urges to tell them off, make hell threats, or try to convince them how much they are wrong), you might want to find some people who have had that specific experience, and ask them about it one-on-one. What changed for them? What happened to make them change their minds? The answers are probably nowhere near as scary and diabolical as you imagine -- and could surprise you.
Blessings!
Sincerely,
Your Clandestine CF Chaplain and Bane of Shoddy Theology Everywhere
