Q4 for Frank: The Biggest Weaknesses

What would you say are the biggest weaknesses of the cessationist tradition?



Frank Answers:

That's an interesting question as I see that tradition as covering most of the writers and thinkers of the last 2000 years of Christian faith.  The weaknesses of cessationism, if it can be put that way, are the weaknesses of mankind -- we are not perfect, and we sin.  We can rely too much on our own accomplishments.  We can think our plans are God's plans, and our tastes are God's tastes.  We can be bookish and introverted, but let's be honest: that's not a fault of cessationism as much as it is a fault of the human predisposition for self-satisfaction.  Frankly I have met quite a few continualists who also live inside their own spirit-filled cocoon as I have cessationists fortified in their libraries.

However, I think the other side of the coin is that the strengths of cessationism are also the strengths of our faith: we see good faith as the cause of good works which God has laid out beforehand; we have categories for wisdom, providence and suffering which (if I am honest) I think that non-cessationist views cannot make sense of; we have the advantage of seeing all men, even leaders, as fallible and like ourselves rather than somehow supernaturally untouchable.