"The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care" as though any questioning of this "mystery" brings forth the very wrath, and judgment of God.
No one believes or teaches that questioning the mystery of predestination brings forth the very wrath, and judgment of God.
What the WCF does indicate is that statements concerning these weightier doctrines have no place in the proclamation of the gospel or in the milk that is to be fed to very new believers. It may cause someone to stumble because of the difficulty of understanding such things - and it does, as we see here all the time.
It is not enough to simply state a doctrinal position and then hide under the supposed umbrella of the questioning the sovereignty of God to escape the responsibility of defining ones position.
I don't see people hiding from the questions generated by the doctrine of predestination vs. "free" will. I see it being tackled head on gladly by those who subscribe to Reformed theology.
Each of us must be able to stand on sound doctrine, and be ready to give an answer when we enter the arena of apologetics.
The doctrines of grace are not in the realm of apologetics. They are in the realm of soteriology.
My challenge to those who subscribe to Reformed Theology is to explain how Adam was able to chose sin, (or not to sin), if he was already decreed by God to sin.
It's all in how you phrase things. It can be a red herring or it can be an honest question.
When you say, "decreed by God to sin" - you say it as if God made the decision to sin for Adam. That is not the teaching of the WCF.
The teaching of the WCF is that God decreed that the sin of Adam take place just as Adam chose to sin - without God authoring that sin or forcing in any way Adam to choose sin.
God's predestination of an event's occurrence does not mean that He Himself makes the choices which bring that occurrence to pass and then forces those choices on men.
As a for instance - God predestines the length of all of our days on earth. He also gives us free will. My neighbor was predestined to live 47 years. But that does not in any way negate the fact that my neighbor chose to drink and drive - which ended his life.
Or - God predestined that Jesus Christ would die for the sins of the world via a Roman cross. Evil men made the choice to crucify Him and they will likely answer for it since God did not force them to kill Him.
According to what the WCF clearly states - God uses
means to bring to pass what He has predestined to occur. In these examples, the free choices of men are those means.
Those ideas aren't that hard to understand and no Reformed student of the scriptures shies away from explaining them to those who are mature enough to digest them.
I have found that many who profess difficulty with the doctrine of predestination do so because of an animosity toward other Reformed doctrines such as election and not because predestination itself is that difficult to understand.
Subscribing to the doctrine of omniscience
demands that one also believes in the doctrine of the predestination of all that occurs in God's creation.
That would be true even if God had not used the word in the scriptures. It is also true regardless of what one thinks is being predestined in the particular examples of predestination we have in the scriptures.
