The Journey to Accepting Difficult Doctrines Is Painful (and Rewarding)
Hard-to-Understand Doctrines
When we think about difficult doctrines, we can think about them in at least a couple of different categories. One category would be those doctrines that are particularly hard to understand. The great theologian Francis Turretin said that the two most difficult doctrines were the doctrine of the Trinity—the three persons, one essence—and the doctrine of the hypostatic union, that is the two natures in one person in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those are not irrational, but they are suprarational. They’re beyond our full comprehension, and so we’re grasping at categories and language and trying to safeguard what we don’t mean and what we do mean. Any parent who’s tried to explain this to a child, or a Sunday school teacher who’s had a seven-year-old ask, “Is there one God or three gods?” “Well, there’s one God, but three persons.” “What does that mean?”—that’s hard to explain. So that’s one category.
Daily Doctrine
Kevin DeYoung
To make systematic theology clear and accessible for the everyday Christian, this one-year guide breaks down important theological topics into daily readings. Each reading features concise and accessible writing and verses for meditation and application.
Hard-to-Accept Doctrines
Then there’s another category which can also be hard to understand, but even more so, it’s hard to accept. It’s difficult on an existential level. I think of a couple of classic examples. One would be the doctrine that’s sometimes called limited atonement or particular redemption.
At first, it doesn’t sound like very good news to believe that God sent Christ and his intention in sending Christ was not to die for everyone. His death was sufficient for all, but it was efficient only for the elect. But the good news in that is that his death was a particular sacrifice. See, everyone limits the atonement either in the intentionality of it or in the nature of it. And so we want to say with Scripture that the nature of the atonement is not limited. It accomplished everything that God meant to accomplish in it. There was nothing lacking. It did not just make us savable; it made us saved. That’s hard on a visceral level.
And then the other one that most people will think of is the doctrine of election and then the corresponding doctrine of reprobation. If you go back further and further and ask the Why? question, the ultimate answer why some are saved and some are not is owing to the good pleasure of God. And that’s hard. That’s clearly taught in Romans 9, most famously, and in a lot of other places, but it’s a difficult doctrine to accept. But it’s really important. And it’s a great example of why theology is important. Because if we just stay away from a hard doctrine like predestination, we won’t be giving God that opportunity to reshape our hearts.
One of the reasons that doctrine is in Scripture is to reshape us from an anthropocentric view—a man-centered view of the world that asks, What do I think? How does this make me feel?—to a theocentric view of the world, where God calls the shots and God’s pleasure is ultimate. That is a painful journey for many people, but ultimately it’s good for us and it’s for God’s glory.
Kevin DeYoung is the author of Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology.
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