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Loraine Boettner

Loraine Boettner

Loraine Boettner (1901-1990) was a Reformed Theologian, born on a farm in Linden, Missouri. After obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree from Tarkio College in 1925, he attended Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied Systematic Theology under Dr. Casper W. Hodge and received his Th.B. (1928) and Th.M. (1929). He taught Bible for eight years in Pikeville College, Kentucky. In 1933 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Tarkio College, and in 1957 the degree of Doctor of Literature. He was a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
From 1958 until his death in 1990, Dr. Boettner lived a quite life in Rock Port, Missouri. For the remaining 32 years of his life, he generously sold his books at cost to any who wrote to ask for them. In doing so, Boettner made good conservative theology readily available at a time when such material was often difficult to come by. Through his writings, he served to popularize the Reformed faith and influenced literally tens of thousands of men and women around the world.
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This doctrine of total inability which declares that men are dead in sin does not mean that all men are equally bad, nor that any man is as bad as he could be, nor that anyone is entirely destitute of virtue, nor that human nature is equal in itself, nor that man’s spirit in inactive, and much less does it mean that the body is dead. What is does mean is that since the fall, man rests under the curse of sin, that he is actuated by wrong principles, and that he is wholly unable to love God, or to do anything meriting salvation. His corruption is extensive, but not necessarily intensive. It is in this sense that man, since the fall, is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, wholly inclined to all evil. He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly and turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice. The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volition, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions. And it is this phase of it which led Luther to declare that ‘free will’ is an empty term, whose reality is lost; and a lost liberty, according to my grammar, is no liberty at all.
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Why precisely this or that one is placed in circumstances which lead to saving faith, while others are not so placed, is indeed, a mystery. We cannot explain the workings of Providence; but we do know that the Judge of all the earth shall do right, and that when we attain to perfect knowledge we shall see that He has sufficient reasons for all His acts.
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Hence the explanation of sin is that God permits it, but controls and overrules it for His own glory. If
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Arminianism has no explanation as to why God purposefully and deliberately creates those who He knows will be lost and who will spend eternity in hell.
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the Arminian makes a fatal concession. Figuratively speaking, he cuts his own throat, for the simple reason that as God foresees those who will be saved, He also sees those who will be lost! Why, then, does He create those who will be lost? Certainly,
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God is the absolute sovereign Ruler of heaven and earth, and we are never to think of Him as wishing or striving to do what He knows He will not do. For Him to do otherwise would be for Him to act foolishly. Since
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what God does. He sovereignly picks a man up out of the kingdom of Satan, and places him in the kingdom of heaven. Those are the elect that are referred to some 25 times in the Scriptures: Matt. 24:22: "For the elect's sake, whom he chose, he shortened those days" (at the destruction of Jerusalem). I Thess. 1:4: "Knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election." Rom. 11:7: "The election obtained it, and the rest were hardened." Rom. 8:33: "Who shall lay anything to charge
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We therefore have to choose between an atonement of high efficiency which is perfectly accomplished, and an atonement of wide extension which is imperfectly accomplished. We cannot have both. If
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the Arminian, in making it apply to all men, reduces its effectiveness to such an extent that it becomes practically no atonement at all.
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We cannot conceive of God bringing into existence a universe without a plan which would extend to all that would be done in that universe. As the Scriptures teach that God's providential control extends to all events, even the most minute, they thereby teach that His plan is equally comprehensive. It is one of His perfections that He has the best possible plan, and that He conducts the course of history to its appointed end. And to admit that He has a plan which He carries out is to admit Predestination.
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There is no such thing as chance, or fortune; nor is there a readier way to gain the fear of God, and to put our whole trust in Him, than to be thoroughly versed in the doctrine of Predestination.
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The quality which gave such force to Calvin’s teaching was his close adherence to the Bible as an inspired and authoritative book.
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It is most necessary that we should have our hearts well established in the firm and unwavering belief of this truth, that whatever comes to pass, be it good or evil, we may look up to the hand and disposal of all, to God.
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The Pelagian denies that God has a plan; the Arminian says that God has a general but not a specific plan; but the Calvinist says that God has a specific plan which embraces all events in all ages.
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