Assurance and Perseverance

Posted on December 25, 2010 
Filed under Theology

“I was recently asked to write a brief response to a question about assurance. The questioner had been troubled by the question (or rather by some responses to the question) ‘Can a believer lose their salvation?’

The question of assurance is a deeply troubling one for many. In every church where I have served there have been people who have struggled with this question…”

– Mark Thompson writes on “Assurance and Perseverance” at Theological Theology.

See also Mark’s (unrelated) previous post, Whatever happened to ad fontes?

“Many of the great advances of the Renaissance and Reformation eras were built upon the humanist program of education in the eloquence of antiquity. Intellectuals such as Desiderius Erasmus believed that society could be improved, and the abuses and errors of the past corrected, through serious and extensive engagement with classical literature.

In the field of theology, one of the most decisive changes was an insistence on first-hand engagement rather than a reliance on secondary summaries of great thoughts from the past. Instead of relying on the Vulgate, Greek and Hebrew studies flourished. Instead of working from collections of purple passages from the church fathers, reading extensively in their works was encouraged as a means of properly understanding the context and significance of things they taught…”