Review: Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty

Peter Sammons. Reprobation and God’s Sovereignty: Recovering A Biblical Doctrine.  Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, January 25, 2022. 296 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

How much do you know and understand the doctrine of reprobation both biblically and how it developed in historical theology through the history of the church?  In his first published book author Peter Sammons explore the historical dimension of this doctrine in church history but here in this book the author Peter Sammons work on biblically recovering this doctrine that is often misunderstood and slandered.  It has been my observation that there are many books that have been written on predestination and election of those who are saved and not as many discussion about reprobation of the lost even though one hear reprobation gets brought up as an objection against Calvinism/Reformed Theology.  It is in light of this consideration that I appreciate author Peter Sammons tackling this subject with care and nuances concerning human will, God’s sovereignty, causation, agency, God’s goodness, etc, and do so with the intent and desire to be biblical.  This subject as it is discussed online and in person seem to generally generate a lot more heat than light and Sammons’ writing isn’t emotionally driven which I appreciate.  I recognize that not everyone reading my review are necessarily Reformed in their theology but I think Sammons has given us a book that one must interact with if one want to consider an academic presentation of this doctrine from a Reformed proponent.  Even for those who consider themselves Reformed already this book is worth getting since so little is often discussed about this doctrine that this book is worthwhile to ensure one understand this accurately and also to be nuanced.

There are eighteen chapters in this book.  The first two chapters establishes that God is Lord, being Lord over all (chapter one) and over condemnation (chapter two).  Chapter three then turn to the place of Romans 9 for the discussion of reprobation followed by chapters analyzing Romans 9 in chapters 4 through 7.  From chapters 8 onwards there’s somewhat a shifting of gears to more systematic theology with chapters 8 and 9 on the parts of predestination and chapter ten on “Concurrence, Compatibalism and the Origin of Objections.”  Two chapters presents us objections people have brought up against reprobation (chapters 11-12) followed by a chapter answering these objections (chapter 13).  Chapter 14 then looks at the doctrine of first and secondary causes and chapter 15 is on human volition and ability.  The last three chapters then looks at different categories of causations that is relevant to God’s causation of reprobation.  Sammons here looks at the causation of divine abandonment, hardening and personal and non-personal agency.

Generally speaking I thought the book overall got better and better towards the end.  Here I think it is appropriate that I insert a constructive criticism not with the book’s content (which I agree with) but with the format which would make the material even more robust.  I personally think chapter eight and nine should be one of the earlier chapters in the book since it explains what is election and also what is reprobation including its elements and sub-elements.  I think Sammons in chapter nine especially was very detailed and nuanced in explaining what is reprobation and it would be helpful for readers right away to understand what the doctrine of reprobation is before seeing verses teaching and proving this biblically.  Chapter 8 and 9 was a hundred page into the book, far too deep into the book in my opinion. Chapter nine has a good chart that define reprobation and its parts which includes listing out of the terms, its definition and biblical texts.

There’s a lot of good content in the book.  The discussions in chapters 16-18 about the different kinds of causation was very helpful and the appendix gives us in summary and chart form the different causation’s terms, definitions and Scriptural support that would be useful as a reference well beyond one’s reading or first reading of the book.  God does not cause evil and he did not put sin in people’s heart directly in the same way as God regenerating someone’s heart towards salvation and so this discussion of causation is quite significant.  I enjoyed also Sammons discussion about Compatibalism and that we are not robots as hyper-Calvinists think we are in which Compatibalism means humans do have a will though that will is a volition and desire of the creature even as God is sovereign.  While discussing the human will Sammons talked about the difference between Christian predestination and fatalism and Islam even in brief (along with the expected discussion of libertarian free will, Middle Knowledge, etc).  Also I was very pleased to see Sammons book also brought to bear insight of Reformed philosophers and philosophically bent theologians concerning the issue of Calvinism and the problem of evil, citing and utilizing the book Calvinism and the Problem of Evil which had contributors such as James Anderson, Paul Helm and Greg Welty.

I am glad such a book was written and I imagine it would be read and reference for years to come given how little book-length topic exists on this topic.  Yet I also have some further constructive criticism. Early in the book on page 65 Sammons noted that the strongest arguments for corporate election from a theological standpoint originated with Karl Barth.  Yet I wished Sammons interacted more with Barth and Barth’s arguments.  After I finished the book just to double check I didn’t miss anything I looked up the index of persons and saw there’s only two reference to Barth and none of them were on Barth’s argument on corporate election.  I don’t want to have detractors misunderstand what I’m trying to say: I do think Sammons’ handling of Romans 9 within the book does show why individual election to salvation is a part of Paul’s authorial intent in Romans 9; I think responding to Barth’s argument would boost Sammons’ interpretative conclusion.  Another area of improvement is more of a suggestion of something to add to the book’s argument that God is not the author of evil. I think from Romans 9 and elsewhere in Scripture we see an “Ex Lex” approach towards the problem of evil in that if morals comes from God and God never said He cannot ordain judgment then there is no basis for creatures to protest against God that He is unjust; now Sammons have said a lot of things about God being unjust such as we don’t deserve grace but this additional thrust I think further reinforce the position. I have benefited here from the insight of Gordon Clark and Jay Adams.  Finally the editing could have been better. For example on page 183 it says the following chart is 3.1 but it is actually 13.1.  It seems the chart is numbered according to the chapter numbers (for instance chapter fourteen has charts labeled as 14.1, 14.2, etc) but chapter 8 has chart 10.1 and 10.2 and chapter 9 has chart 10.3. This doesn’t take away from the argument of the book but if there’s a future updated edition this can help make the book be tidier.

If it is not evident already I highly recommend the book.

NOTE: This book was provided to me free by Kregel Publications without any obligation for a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.