I promised you, my readership, two days ago that I would discuss what R.C. Sproul had to say about Classical Arminianism. In the last post, I talked about Sproul’s introduction and how he divides all existing theologies into three categories: (1) Calvinism, (2) Pelagianism, and (3) Semi-Pelagianism. I also mentioned the idea that Sproul’s labeling of a possible theological ground as “semi-Pelagianism” shows his disdain for any middle ground whatsoever. To him, one is either Calvinist or Pelagian, even if he or she holds a middle-of-the-road theology (such as Classical Arminianism and Molinism).
Today I’m back to discuss R.C. Sproul’s comments regarding James Arminius and Arminian theology. He seems to do a rather decent job of Arminius and his theology. However, what most disturbs me is his section titled “Modern Arminianism.” Sproul begins the section as thus:
“The Synod of Dort did not destroy the Arminian movement. It spread throughout the Continent and later into Colonial America. It survives to this day and currently enjoys a strong resurgence. IN 1989 CLARK H. PINNOCK EDITED ‘THE GRACE OF GOD, THE WILL OF MAN,’ A VOLUME DESIGNED TO MAKE THE CASE FOR ARMINIANISM” (R.C. Sproul, “Willing to Believe: The Controversy Over Free Will, Fifth Edition.” Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007, page 140).
Clark Pinnock is the name mentioned with contemporary Arminianism. But what gripped me the most in reading Sproul is that he seems to only discuss Clark Pinnock in this section. Here’s the proof:
“In his own essay, in which he chronicles his personal pilgrimage from Calvinism to Arminianism, Pinnock observes...” (140)
“Pinnock indicates that one purpose of ‘The Grace of God, the Will of Man’ is to ‘give a louder voice to the silent majority of Arminian evangelicals’” (141).
“In his own pilgrimage Pinnock came to question God’s omniscience and foreknowledge” (141).
In Sproul’s section on “Modern Arminianism,” he provides seven quotes (SEVEN) of Clark Pinnock and gives no other quotes from other Arminian theologians. What does this tell us? This tells us that in Sproul’s mind at least, Pinnock is the icon of modern Arminianism. But in so doing, Sproul also betrays himself. Read the following quote:
“It is important to note that Pinnock’s new view of God’s foreknowledge GOES BEYOND THAT OF MOST ARMINIANS, AS HE INDICATES. It appears to go well beyond the views espoused in the middle-knowledge concept developed by the Spanish Jesuit Luis Molina” (142).
Sproul provides an entire modern Arminian section devoted to expounding and exposing the views of Clark Pinnock; but if Clark Pinnock is the icon of modern Arminianism, why then, does Sproul note that his views “go beyond that of most Arminians”? If his views surpass the majority of Arminianism (and all of Molinism), then how can Pinnock accurately be singled out as the Arminian target? How can Clark Pinnock be lifted up to us as the “typical” Arminian?
What’s so tragic about the nature of his presentation on modern Arminianism is that, by singling out Pinnock, Sproul does away with a number of other Arminians who do argue for divine omniscience. Among these would be theologians such as Roger Olson. I took the time to look up the printing year of Sproul’s book. Sproul’s book “Willing to Believe” came out in July 1997. It has been through five printings since then, and the fifth printing came out in 2007. Roger Olson’s work, “Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities” appeared in print in 2006. This means that, for Sproul’s latest printing of his book, he had one year to incorporate Olson’s material into his own work...and yet, he did not. Here’s what Roger Olson says regarding omniscience and divine foreknowledge:
“Open Theists jump on the problem of reconciling divine foreknowledge and libertarian free will by suggesting that the two cannot be reconciled, so God must not know the future exhaustively and infallibly...Arminius did seem to view the future and God as in some sense open. At the same time, though, HE BELIEVED IN GOD’S EXHAUSTIVE AND INFALLIBLE FOREKNOWLEDGE...open theists argue that their view is consistent Arminianism...but at what cost? Most Arminians have not jumped on the open theist bandwagon because THEY ARE COMMITTED TO THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION! Now, there is an irony! Calvinists accuse classical Arminians of not believing in predestination, but MOST CLASSICAL ARMINIANS REJECT OPEN THEISM PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN PREDESTINATION” (Roger Olson, “Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006, pages 197-198).
Classical Arminians believe in the exhaustive divine foreknowledge of God, such that they are not willing to turn to Open Theism as a valid theological position. Predestination, as the Bible teaches, tells us that God already “foreknows” things that later come about. Olson goes on to say:
“Classical Arminianism bases a great deal on Romans 8:29, which seems to refer not to classes or groups but to individuals. God does not justify and glorify groups, but individuals. Classical Arminian theology includes corporate election AND individual (conditional) election based on God’s foreknowledge of future faith (or lack thereof). Open Theism has to reduce predestination (election and reprobation) to its indefinite, corporate dimension; predestination of individuals gets lost...few Arminians are willing to denounce their open theist brothers and sisters as heretics, but MOST ARE UNWILLING AT PRESENT TO GIVE UP BELIEF IN ABSOLUTE DIVINE FOREKNOWLEDGE, BECAUSE THE BIBLE SEEMS TO ASSUME IT EVERYWHERE” (Olson, 198).
Classical Arminians hold to exhaustive divine foreknowledge and omniscience because “the Bible seems to assume it everywhere.” In other words, Classical Arminians hold to Scripture in their philosophical assessment. In their minds, they do not have to abandon free will in order to assert God’s omniscience. In addition, Arminians do not abandon free will because the Scriptures seem to affirm this concept as well.
All the quotes on Classical Arminianism and divine omniscience are to make the case that Classical Arminians hold to divine omniscience, a concept that Clark Pinnock does not hold to. How then, can R.C. Sproul label Pinnock the icon of modern Arminianism, then turn around and note that Pinnock departs from the traditional Arminian view, while still using him as a valid source of Arminianism? This is a boggling question, indeed.
I think the above questions are good ones to answer because we all know that theological presuppositions can slant one’s understanding of other theological systems. That’s what we find with R.C. Sproul’s section on modern Arminianism: a Calvinist attack of a system that, to him, seems at least “semi-Pelagian.” But the truth is that, according to Classical Arminians, Pinnock (Open Theist) departs from Classic Arminian thought and should not be labeled as the typical Arminian. In the end, all theological systems should be given a fair presentation. We don’t need to caricaturize systems in order to refute them. If we “play fair” in our assessments of theological systems and leave it to the readers to decide what is truth from what is error, then we will not only do justice to the masses...but we will also conduct ourselves as sound theologians in the fear of God. This is my prayer for all theologians who name the name of Christ Jesus.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Happy Birthday...to Me!!!
Dear Readership,
I am writing to announce that today, August 21, 2010, is my twenty-sixth birthday!!!
I won't write much, but I just wanted to give a hearty "thanks" to all of my readership for making the success of this blog possible. Next, I'd like to thank all of my friends (and brothers) who encouraged me along the way...who continued to remind me that the world desires to read and know my ideas and thoughts. Then, I'd like to thank my family, who has supported me in all my endeavors. A special thanks goes out to a dear professor and friend, Dr. Ken Keathley, who has always believed in me and has patiently (daily) read my work here at the Center for Theological Studies. Dr. Keathley, I am so grateful to God for you that it goes beyond words. First and foremost, I want to give all the glory and honor to God, without whom none of this would be possible. What grace I have been given...and I hope to share that grace with others.
Once again, thanks to my readership for all of your support (whether hidden or known). Continue to read and pray for my work here at the blog. May all that is said and done here bring the utmost glory to God!!
Soli Deo Gloria, Deidre Richardson
I am writing to announce that today, August 21, 2010, is my twenty-sixth birthday!!!
I won't write much, but I just wanted to give a hearty "thanks" to all of my readership for making the success of this blog possible. Next, I'd like to thank all of my friends (and brothers) who encouraged me along the way...who continued to remind me that the world desires to read and know my ideas and thoughts. Then, I'd like to thank my family, who has supported me in all my endeavors. A special thanks goes out to a dear professor and friend, Dr. Ken Keathley, who has always believed in me and has patiently (daily) read my work here at the Center for Theological Studies. Dr. Keathley, I am so grateful to God for you that it goes beyond words. First and foremost, I want to give all the glory and honor to God, without whom none of this would be possible. What grace I have been given...and I hope to share that grace with others.
Once again, thanks to my readership for all of your support (whether hidden or known). Continue to read and pray for my work here at the blog. May all that is said and done here bring the utmost glory to God!!
Soli Deo Gloria, Deidre Richardson
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Pouring on the Rhetoric: R.C. Sproul and the False Dilemma
Most people think that after some time has been invested in studying a certain topic or debate, the surprises die down. After a year or so submerged in research, what one reads is not surprising. But this belief, for me at least, is trumped by what I read daily. Even after all the time I’ve spent in the Calvinism-Arminianism debate, I’m still getting surprised by what I read and the things I see.
For me, the current “surprise” comes from a book titled “Willing to Believe: The Controversy Over Free Will” by Robert Charles (R.C.) Sproul. Let me just say from the outset that I’ve never read a more degrading and humiliating introduction such as Sproul’s study of theology in all of my near twenty-six years of existence. Let me quote just a few lines from Sproul so that you can understand what I mean.
First, Sproul describes the modern-day church as living in what he calls a “Babylonian Captivity”:
“The cultural ‘Babylon’ of our day is often described by evangelical Christians as the worldview espoused by so-called secular humanism” (R.C. Sproul, “Willing to Believe: The Controversy Over Free Will,” fifth edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007, page 16).
I would agree: secular humanism is a problem in the thinking of many in our world who simply believe that human nature is inherently good. I agree wholeheartedly. How does this secular humanism work out, though? Sproul writes:
“What would Luther [Martin] think of the modern heirs of the Reformation? My guess is that he would write on THE MODERN CHURCH’S CAPTIVITY TO PELAGIANISM. I think he would see an unholy alliance between Christianity and humanism that reflects MORE OF A PELAGIAN VIEW OF MAN THAN THE BIBLICAL VIEW” (Sproul, 21).
So now we we see the words “Pelagian” and “the biblical view” in contrast to each other. For the evangelical Christians I know (me included), we would also wholeheartedly agree with Sproul: that the Bible presents man as fallen and in need of God’s grace if he is to ever come to faith. Pelagianism simply describes man as ignorant; but he is more than ignorant---his entire being has been stained in sin.
But “Pelagianism” is not the only thing discussed in Sproul’s introduction. Sproul zooms in even more on his target audience with this quote from J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston’s introduction to Martin Luther’s “The Bondage of the Will”:
“What is the modern reader to make of ‘The Bondage of the Will’? That it is a brilliant and exhilarating performance, a masterpiece of the controversialist’s difficult art, he will no doubt readily admit; but now comes the question, IS LUTHER’S CASE ANY PART OF GOD’S TRUTH? And, if so, has it a message for Christians to-day? No doubt the reader will find the way by which Luther leads him to be a strange new road, an approach which in all probability he has never considered, A LINE OF THOUGHT WHICH HE WOULD NORMALLY LABEL ‘CALVINISTIC’ AND HASTILY PASS BY...and the present-day Evangelical Christian (WHO HAS SEMI-PELAGIANISM IN HIS BLOOD) will be inclined to do the same, BUT BOTH HISTORY AND SCRIPTURE, IF ALLOWED TO SPEAK, COUNSEL OTHERWISE” (quoted by R.C. Sproul, page 22).
Here is where J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston (and R.C. Sproul, the one providing the quotation) take a turn for the worse. Notice that up until this point, we’ve seen the words “secular humanism” and “Pelagianism” as something bad, something that we should avoid, something against the Scriptures. But here in this quote we now read that “the present-day evangelical Christian will be inclined” to pass by “a line of thought which he would normally label CALVINISTIC.” The last word, “Calvinistic,” brings a new label into the picture. Now, we can only choose between “Pelagianism” and “Calvinistic” theology. There are no others (at least in Sproul’s eyes).
If that isn’t an attention-grabber, we also have Sproul’s words above that “the present-day evangelical Christian...who has SEMI-PELAGIANISM in his blood.” Do you see what’s happening here? If one is considering a theology, Sproul would say, “There are three types of theology: Calvinistic, Pelagian, and semi-Pelagian.” Even a possible middle ground is shunned by Sproul as “semi-Pelagian,” that is, as being an offshoot of Pelagianism and Pelagian theology. No one wants to be labeled Pelagian; after all, Pelagianism espouses that man does not need God’s grace and can will himself to salvation. The only thing that man lost in the fall was knowledge of the truth. In Pelagius’s eyes, man is only ignorant of his true potential (not unable to be what he should). To argue human inability is to argue against Pelagian theology. But what about “semi-Pelagianism”? The fact that Sproul labels the middle ground as connected to Pelagianism (“semi” means “kind of” or “similar to”), demonstrates his disdain for any middle ground of any sort. One must either be Calvinistic or Pelagian.
See the last sentence in the above quote by Packer and Johnston? The “Calvinistic” theology that the modern-day evangelical Christian would disdain is what “both history and the Scriptures” testify to. In other words, Sproul is making it known here that in his mind, as well as the minds of Packer and Johnston, Calvinism is what history and the Scriptures attest. Calvinism, in other words, is being made the biblical view here: the Bible teaches (according to Sproul, Packer, and Johnston) that Calvinism “is the way, the truth, and the life”!
Sproul then goes on to quote Packer and Johnston again:
“To the Reformers, the crucial question was not simply, whether God justifies believers without works of law. It was the broader question, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether GOD IS TO BE THOUGHT OF AS SAVING THEM BY FREE, UNCONDITIONAL, INVINCIBLE GRACE, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith...whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, OR OF SELF-RELIANCE AND SELF-EFFORT” (quoted by R.C. Sproul, page 23).
The last statement Sproul makes testifies to his false dilemma in theology: that one must either affirm “utter reliance on God for salvation,” which Sproul has already labeled Calvinism, or “self-reliance and self-effort,” which is termed “semi-Pelagianism” and “Pelagianism.” To Sproul, there are only two theologies (“semi-Pelagianism” and “Pelagianism” are one and the same in Sproul’s mind); what’s so disappointing about such writing is that Sproul writes an entire book on theologians such as Pelagius all the way up to Augustine, Arminius, John Cassian, etc. Now, I can admit that there is a semi-Pelagian view out there; but Sproul even lumps Arminianism into the camp of “semi-Pelagianism.”
For those who wanna see Sproul’s labeling of Classical Arminianism...you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
For me, the current “surprise” comes from a book titled “Willing to Believe: The Controversy Over Free Will” by Robert Charles (R.C.) Sproul. Let me just say from the outset that I’ve never read a more degrading and humiliating introduction such as Sproul’s study of theology in all of my near twenty-six years of existence. Let me quote just a few lines from Sproul so that you can understand what I mean.
First, Sproul describes the modern-day church as living in what he calls a “Babylonian Captivity”:
“The cultural ‘Babylon’ of our day is often described by evangelical Christians as the worldview espoused by so-called secular humanism” (R.C. Sproul, “Willing to Believe: The Controversy Over Free Will,” fifth edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2007, page 16).
I would agree: secular humanism is a problem in the thinking of many in our world who simply believe that human nature is inherently good. I agree wholeheartedly. How does this secular humanism work out, though? Sproul writes:
“What would Luther [Martin] think of the modern heirs of the Reformation? My guess is that he would write on THE MODERN CHURCH’S CAPTIVITY TO PELAGIANISM. I think he would see an unholy alliance between Christianity and humanism that reflects MORE OF A PELAGIAN VIEW OF MAN THAN THE BIBLICAL VIEW” (Sproul, 21).
So now we we see the words “Pelagian” and “the biblical view” in contrast to each other. For the evangelical Christians I know (me included), we would also wholeheartedly agree with Sproul: that the Bible presents man as fallen and in need of God’s grace if he is to ever come to faith. Pelagianism simply describes man as ignorant; but he is more than ignorant---his entire being has been stained in sin.
But “Pelagianism” is not the only thing discussed in Sproul’s introduction. Sproul zooms in even more on his target audience with this quote from J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston’s introduction to Martin Luther’s “The Bondage of the Will”:
“What is the modern reader to make of ‘The Bondage of the Will’? That it is a brilliant and exhilarating performance, a masterpiece of the controversialist’s difficult art, he will no doubt readily admit; but now comes the question, IS LUTHER’S CASE ANY PART OF GOD’S TRUTH? And, if so, has it a message for Christians to-day? No doubt the reader will find the way by which Luther leads him to be a strange new road, an approach which in all probability he has never considered, A LINE OF THOUGHT WHICH HE WOULD NORMALLY LABEL ‘CALVINISTIC’ AND HASTILY PASS BY...and the present-day Evangelical Christian (WHO HAS SEMI-PELAGIANISM IN HIS BLOOD) will be inclined to do the same, BUT BOTH HISTORY AND SCRIPTURE, IF ALLOWED TO SPEAK, COUNSEL OTHERWISE” (quoted by R.C. Sproul, page 22).
Here is where J.I. Packer and O.R. Johnston (and R.C. Sproul, the one providing the quotation) take a turn for the worse. Notice that up until this point, we’ve seen the words “secular humanism” and “Pelagianism” as something bad, something that we should avoid, something against the Scriptures. But here in this quote we now read that “the present-day evangelical Christian will be inclined” to pass by “a line of thought which he would normally label CALVINISTIC.” The last word, “Calvinistic,” brings a new label into the picture. Now, we can only choose between “Pelagianism” and “Calvinistic” theology. There are no others (at least in Sproul’s eyes).
If that isn’t an attention-grabber, we also have Sproul’s words above that “the present-day evangelical Christian...who has SEMI-PELAGIANISM in his blood.” Do you see what’s happening here? If one is considering a theology, Sproul would say, “There are three types of theology: Calvinistic, Pelagian, and semi-Pelagian.” Even a possible middle ground is shunned by Sproul as “semi-Pelagian,” that is, as being an offshoot of Pelagianism and Pelagian theology. No one wants to be labeled Pelagian; after all, Pelagianism espouses that man does not need God’s grace and can will himself to salvation. The only thing that man lost in the fall was knowledge of the truth. In Pelagius’s eyes, man is only ignorant of his true potential (not unable to be what he should). To argue human inability is to argue against Pelagian theology. But what about “semi-Pelagianism”? The fact that Sproul labels the middle ground as connected to Pelagianism (“semi” means “kind of” or “similar to”), demonstrates his disdain for any middle ground of any sort. One must either be Calvinistic or Pelagian.
See the last sentence in the above quote by Packer and Johnston? The “Calvinistic” theology that the modern-day evangelical Christian would disdain is what “both history and the Scriptures” testify to. In other words, Sproul is making it known here that in his mind, as well as the minds of Packer and Johnston, Calvinism is what history and the Scriptures attest. Calvinism, in other words, is being made the biblical view here: the Bible teaches (according to Sproul, Packer, and Johnston) that Calvinism “is the way, the truth, and the life”!
Sproul then goes on to quote Packer and Johnston again:
“To the Reformers, the crucial question was not simply, whether God justifies believers without works of law. It was the broader question, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether GOD IS TO BE THOUGHT OF AS SAVING THEM BY FREE, UNCONDITIONAL, INVINCIBLE GRACE, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith...whether, in the last analysis, Christianity is a religion of utter reliance on God for salvation and all things necessary to it, OR OF SELF-RELIANCE AND SELF-EFFORT” (quoted by R.C. Sproul, page 23).
The last statement Sproul makes testifies to his false dilemma in theology: that one must either affirm “utter reliance on God for salvation,” which Sproul has already labeled Calvinism, or “self-reliance and self-effort,” which is termed “semi-Pelagianism” and “Pelagianism.” To Sproul, there are only two theologies (“semi-Pelagianism” and “Pelagianism” are one and the same in Sproul’s mind); what’s so disappointing about such writing is that Sproul writes an entire book on theologians such as Pelagius all the way up to Augustine, Arminius, John Cassian, etc. Now, I can admit that there is a semi-Pelagian view out there; but Sproul even lumps Arminianism into the camp of “semi-Pelagianism.”
For those who wanna see Sproul’s labeling of Classical Arminianism...you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Christ: The Ground of Election
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places IN CHRIST, just as HE CHOSE US IN HIM before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, HAVING PREDESTINATED US to adoption as sons BY JESUS CHRIST to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which HE MADE US ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED” (Ephesians 1:3-6, New King James Version).
“In the Arminian order of the decrees the election of individuals presupposed the election of Christ. The Dort deputations were anxious to point out that the Arminian designation of Christ as ‘fundamentum electionis’ (foundation of election) was acceptable only if it meant that without Christ the decree of election could not be executed” (G. Michael Thomas, “The Extent of the Atonement: A Dilemma for Reformed Theology from Calvin to the Consensus (1536-1675).” Carlisle & Cumbria: Paternoster, 1997, page 143).
I picked up G. Michael Thomas’s book again, a book that I hadn’t read out of in a while. For those who may have read his book (and those who have not), Thomas has a section devoted to the Synod of Dort (or Dortrecht), the Synod that deposed of Arminius’s followers, the Remonstrants, and removed them for their professorships at the University of Leiden. It was at the Synod of Dort that Arminius’s theology was declared heresy, and that Calvinism was affirmed. It was also at this Synod that the “Five Points of Calvinism” were created, a reactionary response to the “Five Points of Arminianism.” To say the least, the Synod of Dort is quite important in the history of the church and historical theology itself.
There were several topics discussed at this Synod...among them, the issue of election. One of the big questions posed was, “What is the grounds of election? How are certain individuals elected and given to Christ?” For the Calvinists at Dort, the ground of election was God’s will---God picks certain ones and passes over certain others because He wants to.
Franciscus Gomarus, a supralapsarian, had this to say about Christ and election:
“The giving of Christ is A MEANS SUBORDINATE to the election of men to salvation” (“The Extent of the Atonement,” page 143).
The Swiss had responded in this manner:
“We abhor with serious and true detestation that which is said, that God predestined Christ to be mediator before having any will or intention to save anyone by name” (144).
Gomarus, the Swiss, and other parties present intended to make it clear that first, God picks those whom He will save, and then sends Christ to atone for those certain individuals.
But this creates a problem of enormous magnitude, according to Keith Stanglin:
“First, the Reformed position has God loving some sinners and saving them logically BEFORE he had given satisfaction to his own righteousness, thus inverting the twofold love by subordinating his love for righteousness to his love for sinners. Second, God wills to damn some sinners without regard to whether the sinner would continue impenitent, thereby abolishing his love for sinners EVEN WHEN SATISFACTION HAS BEEN MADE” (Keith D. Stanglin, “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609.” Leiden& Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007, page 229).
Two problems are created by the Calvinist placement of the decree of election before the decree of Christ: first, such persons are elected LOGICALLY BEFORE the sin of man is satisfied; secondly, even though satisfaction for sin would be made, God would still punish the sinner for the abolished sin. In short, the sinner would be punished twice without an opportunity to accept or reject the atonement that has been made for his or her sin.
Let’s deal with the first of these problems. If Calvinists place the decree of election before the decree of Christ’s atonement, then this means that certain sinners are elected to Christ BEFORE sin is done away with---which means that people are not elect “in Christ,” but “apart from Christ.” What is the significance of this, you may ask? The significance is that, if people are elect or reprobate before the atonement, then the atonement merely pardons the elect sinners; in other words, the governmental theory of atonement becomes the right one!
What is the governmental theory of the atonement? Roger Olson writes:
“In other words, according to those Arminians who do hold to the governmental theory, God inflicted pain on Christ for the sins of the world in order to uphold his justice and holiness. Christ’s suffering was equivalent to any sinner’s deserved punishment so that God could forgive while at the same time being wholly just and holy. But CHRIST DID NOT TAKE THE ACTUAL PUNISHMENT DESERVED BY EVERY PERSON” (Roger Olson, “Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006, page 224).
In the governmental theory, “Christ’s suffering was EQUIVALENT to any sinner’s deserved punishment,” not the punishment that every single son and daughter of Adam deserved. Now someone may say, “Why do you connect the governmental theory with the Calvinist decrees? I do so because, if God picked certain individuals without regard to their specific sins, then all the elect sinners needed was someone to pay “a debt” for sin. Once God picked those He desired to save, He only needed someone to offer up “a debt” for the sins of the elect, and He could proceed with His plans. Jesus then, did not have to “die” for the sins of mankind. In other words, the penalty of death was merely optional for God...God could have dealt with sin in other ways.
Such thought is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD! As a Classical Arminian, I believe that Christ had to die on the cross for the sins of mankind because the penalty was death. The fact that man sinned in the Garden despite the warning (“the day you eat thereof you will die”) warranted the penalty of death. God told them that the suffering for sin was death, and death is what God decreed when they sinned.
Think about it, though: if all sinned in Adam (Romans 5), and the penalty was death, then someone needed to come and die for the entire human race. Every son and daughter of Adam and Eve had the sentence of death hanging over their heads. In this deserved bracket of death for Adamic sin, no one is placed above another. The so-called “elect” of the Calvinist system, then, would have been no more deserving or elite than the rest of humanity. And this is why Calvinists desire to place God’s decree of the atonement AFTER election, and not before. If God were to deal with sin BEFORE choosing the elect, He would then have made atonement for every single individual because all individuals would be made clean by His sacrifice. And then the question becomes, “Why, after making one sacrifice for all persons, would Christ pick a few out of which to grant the atonement to?” And, as you know...at that point, Calvinists would shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know; it’s a mystery, and we can’t comprehend all that lies in the mind of God.” And this is simply no answer at all for such important questions regarding sinners and salvation.
Which did God deal with first in regards to man: the sentence of death or the election of individuals? If we say that election came first, God picks people without regard to their Adamic sin. In other words, God begins to “smile on sin,” something that I shutter to think is true. But, if Scripture is right, then the atonement was not just about love alone, but justice and love working together. Here are the words of James Arminius:
“There remains with God His right entire to impart those benefits---which are His by nature, which He desired from compassion to communicate to sinful men, but, JUSTICE WITHSTANDING, COULD NOT CARRY INTO EFFECT, and which, now that Hus justice is pacified by the blood and death of Christ, He can actually bestow---to whom He thinks fit, and under those conditions which He shall prescribe; because He, as the injured party, could prescribe the mode of reconciliation, which also He did prescribe, consisting in the death and obedience of His own Son; and because He Himself gave to us Him who was to perform the functions of a Mediator for us” (James Arminius, “Works,” III:331).
The same God who abandoned Christ on the cross due to the sins of the world (Matt. 27:46) is the same God who cannot smile on sinners who have yet to receive the atonement of Christ for their sins. If Calvinists are right, God favors electing sinners and not believers...and this is contrary to the nature and character of a holy God, for “He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim. 2:13, NKJV).
“In the Arminian order of the decrees the election of individuals presupposed the election of Christ. The Dort deputations were anxious to point out that the Arminian designation of Christ as ‘fundamentum electionis’ (foundation of election) was acceptable only if it meant that without Christ the decree of election could not be executed” (G. Michael Thomas, “The Extent of the Atonement: A Dilemma for Reformed Theology from Calvin to the Consensus (1536-1675).” Carlisle & Cumbria: Paternoster, 1997, page 143).
I picked up G. Michael Thomas’s book again, a book that I hadn’t read out of in a while. For those who may have read his book (and those who have not), Thomas has a section devoted to the Synod of Dort (or Dortrecht), the Synod that deposed of Arminius’s followers, the Remonstrants, and removed them for their professorships at the University of Leiden. It was at the Synod of Dort that Arminius’s theology was declared heresy, and that Calvinism was affirmed. It was also at this Synod that the “Five Points of Calvinism” were created, a reactionary response to the “Five Points of Arminianism.” To say the least, the Synod of Dort is quite important in the history of the church and historical theology itself.
There were several topics discussed at this Synod...among them, the issue of election. One of the big questions posed was, “What is the grounds of election? How are certain individuals elected and given to Christ?” For the Calvinists at Dort, the ground of election was God’s will---God picks certain ones and passes over certain others because He wants to.
Franciscus Gomarus, a supralapsarian, had this to say about Christ and election:
“The giving of Christ is A MEANS SUBORDINATE to the election of men to salvation” (“The Extent of the Atonement,” page 143).
The Swiss had responded in this manner:
“We abhor with serious and true detestation that which is said, that God predestined Christ to be mediator before having any will or intention to save anyone by name” (144).
Gomarus, the Swiss, and other parties present intended to make it clear that first, God picks those whom He will save, and then sends Christ to atone for those certain individuals.
But this creates a problem of enormous magnitude, according to Keith Stanglin:
“First, the Reformed position has God loving some sinners and saving them logically BEFORE he had given satisfaction to his own righteousness, thus inverting the twofold love by subordinating his love for righteousness to his love for sinners. Second, God wills to damn some sinners without regard to whether the sinner would continue impenitent, thereby abolishing his love for sinners EVEN WHEN SATISFACTION HAS BEEN MADE” (Keith D. Stanglin, “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609.” Leiden& Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007, page 229).
Two problems are created by the Calvinist placement of the decree of election before the decree of Christ: first, such persons are elected LOGICALLY BEFORE the sin of man is satisfied; secondly, even though satisfaction for sin would be made, God would still punish the sinner for the abolished sin. In short, the sinner would be punished twice without an opportunity to accept or reject the atonement that has been made for his or her sin.
Let’s deal with the first of these problems. If Calvinists place the decree of election before the decree of Christ’s atonement, then this means that certain sinners are elected to Christ BEFORE sin is done away with---which means that people are not elect “in Christ,” but “apart from Christ.” What is the significance of this, you may ask? The significance is that, if people are elect or reprobate before the atonement, then the atonement merely pardons the elect sinners; in other words, the governmental theory of atonement becomes the right one!
What is the governmental theory of the atonement? Roger Olson writes:
“In other words, according to those Arminians who do hold to the governmental theory, God inflicted pain on Christ for the sins of the world in order to uphold his justice and holiness. Christ’s suffering was equivalent to any sinner’s deserved punishment so that God could forgive while at the same time being wholly just and holy. But CHRIST DID NOT TAKE THE ACTUAL PUNISHMENT DESERVED BY EVERY PERSON” (Roger Olson, “Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006, page 224).
In the governmental theory, “Christ’s suffering was EQUIVALENT to any sinner’s deserved punishment,” not the punishment that every single son and daughter of Adam deserved. Now someone may say, “Why do you connect the governmental theory with the Calvinist decrees? I do so because, if God picked certain individuals without regard to their specific sins, then all the elect sinners needed was someone to pay “a debt” for sin. Once God picked those He desired to save, He only needed someone to offer up “a debt” for the sins of the elect, and He could proceed with His plans. Jesus then, did not have to “die” for the sins of mankind. In other words, the penalty of death was merely optional for God...God could have dealt with sin in other ways.
Such thought is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD! As a Classical Arminian, I believe that Christ had to die on the cross for the sins of mankind because the penalty was death. The fact that man sinned in the Garden despite the warning (“the day you eat thereof you will die”) warranted the penalty of death. God told them that the suffering for sin was death, and death is what God decreed when they sinned.
Think about it, though: if all sinned in Adam (Romans 5), and the penalty was death, then someone needed to come and die for the entire human race. Every son and daughter of Adam and Eve had the sentence of death hanging over their heads. In this deserved bracket of death for Adamic sin, no one is placed above another. The so-called “elect” of the Calvinist system, then, would have been no more deserving or elite than the rest of humanity. And this is why Calvinists desire to place God’s decree of the atonement AFTER election, and not before. If God were to deal with sin BEFORE choosing the elect, He would then have made atonement for every single individual because all individuals would be made clean by His sacrifice. And then the question becomes, “Why, after making one sacrifice for all persons, would Christ pick a few out of which to grant the atonement to?” And, as you know...at that point, Calvinists would shrug their shoulders and say, “I don’t know; it’s a mystery, and we can’t comprehend all that lies in the mind of God.” And this is simply no answer at all for such important questions regarding sinners and salvation.
Which did God deal with first in regards to man: the sentence of death or the election of individuals? If we say that election came first, God picks people without regard to their Adamic sin. In other words, God begins to “smile on sin,” something that I shutter to think is true. But, if Scripture is right, then the atonement was not just about love alone, but justice and love working together. Here are the words of James Arminius:
“There remains with God His right entire to impart those benefits---which are His by nature, which He desired from compassion to communicate to sinful men, but, JUSTICE WITHSTANDING, COULD NOT CARRY INTO EFFECT, and which, now that Hus justice is pacified by the blood and death of Christ, He can actually bestow---to whom He thinks fit, and under those conditions which He shall prescribe; because He, as the injured party, could prescribe the mode of reconciliation, which also He did prescribe, consisting in the death and obedience of His own Son; and because He Himself gave to us Him who was to perform the functions of a Mediator for us” (James Arminius, “Works,” III:331).
The same God who abandoned Christ on the cross due to the sins of the world (Matt. 27:46) is the same God who cannot smile on sinners who have yet to receive the atonement of Christ for their sins. If Calvinists are right, God favors electing sinners and not believers...and this is contrary to the nature and character of a holy God, for “He cannot deny Himself” (2 Tim. 2:13, NKJV).
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Getting the Story Straight, Pt. V-B: The Divine Pleasure
“Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him” (J.I. Packer, “Introduction” from “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4; quoted by David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn in “The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented, Second Edition.” Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004, page 3).
In yesterday’s post, I focused on Arminius’s words regarding the call of man to salvation. I showed in that post that God is the one who gets the praise for man’s salvation, from beginning to end; that, although man must receive the gift of salvation in order to be saved, Arminius never credits man with the work of salvation but instead gives glory to God. Before I get started again today, let me just say that I am surprised that J.I. Packer and other Calvinists are able to make such comments like the quote above in print for folks all over the world to see. And what’s so sad is that Calvinists are completely misguided when it comes to Classical Arminian theology...and most of the world just seems to focus on “foreseen faith” as the reason why they choose not to be Arminian, instead of reading Arminius for themselves and finding out whether or not he speaks truth. If you’ve ever picked up a copy of Arminius’s “Works” and thumbed through them long enough, you could not make the statement above that Packer makes; you would not be able to claim that Arminians hold to their theology because of “philosophical commitments”. Rather, we hold to the philosophy we do because of the Scriptures themselves. Our theology determines our philosophy, not the other way around.
In today’s post, I wanna talk on the topic of “The Divine Pleasure”: that is, What pleases God? What is God pleased to do in the world? If “God does whatever He pleases,” as the Calvinists say, then what pleases God? If we can look at the Scriptures and see what God does, then we can resolve within ourselves that God does what He does because it is pleasing to Him. After all, God is not bound by anyone or anything outside of Himself to do what He does; He is free to do as He so chooses (this is where Classical Arminians DO agree with our Calvinist brethren). In this sense, Classical Arminians, like Calvinists, hold to a form of “unconditional” election---that being, that God did not have to save anyone. He was not obligated to save us, since we are responsible for our sin in Adam (Rom. 5).
I’m gonna stick around Arminius’s words on “The Vocation of Men to Salvation” (Disputation XVI), which is where I came from yesterday. Regarding the way salvation is dispensed, Arminius writes the following:
“The Disposing Cause is the wisdom and justice of God; by which HE KNOWS HOW IT IS PROPER FOR THIS VOCATION TO BE ADMINISTERED, and wills it to be dispensed as it is lawful and befitting; and from which is formed the Decree of his will concerning the administration and its mode. (1 Cor. i,17,18.)” (Arminius, “Works,” II:232).
Why is salvation dispensed as a gift received by faith? Because this pleases God; the way salvation is granted to sinners is the way God saw fit to do things. If He had wanted to grant salvation another way, then He would have been free and right to do it another way. The fact that salvation comes the way it does testifies to the freedom of God, by which He is just in His doings.
In their description of “Unconditional Election,” Steele, Thomas,and Quinn write the following:
“The doctrine of election declares that God, before the foundation of the world, chose certain individuals from among the fallen members of Adam’s race to be the objects of His undeserved favor. These, and these only, He purposed to save. GOD COULD HAVE CHOSEN TO SAVE ALL MEN (FOR HE HAD THE POWER AND AUTHORITY TO DO SO) OR HE COULD HAVE CHOSEN TO SAVE NONE (FOR HE WAS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO SHOW MERCY TO ANY)---but He did neither. Instead, He chose to save some and to exclude others. His eternal choice of particular sinners for salvation was not based upon any foreseen act or response on the part of those selected, but was based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will. Thus, ELECTION WAS NOT DETERMINED BY, OR CONDITIONED UPON, ANYTHING THAT MEN WOULD DO, BUT RESULTED ENTIRELY FROM GOD’S SELF-DETERMINED PURPOSE” (“The Five Points of Calvinism,” page 27).
It is no secret that David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn are all Calvinist (at least Molinist) in their theology, since they argue for unconditional election. However (and this might shock most who read this), Classical Arminians ACTUALLY AGREE WITH THE ABOVE STATEMENT IN BOLD CAPS! We do not argue in our theology that God “had” to save us, nor do we argue that God “could not have done it any other way.” We believe that God could have left all of us drowning in sin, destined for Hell, and God would have been just in so doing. The Lord didn’t “owe” us salvation in any shape, form or fashion. This is the “Reformed” side of my theology on display.
BUT...and this is where my “Arminian” side comes out, we believe, contra Calvinists, that God decided to save man by the exercise of his God-given faith! While it certainly was a possibility of God’s to save certain persons, we don’t believe that God chose certain individuals and passed by others; rather, God decided to save or damn on the basis of faith. The classic passage of all time, John 3:16-18, tells us of the plan of God and His way of salvation: “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18, NKJV). Those who follow in the theology of James Arminius himself cannot say that God was obligated to save every single individual. This would be like saying that God was obligated to save every single Jew because of their ethnicity (Rom. 9), which is a ludicrous statement to make! God did not have to come for every person, but He did because this fit “the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:9,11).
God administers salvation the way He does because “He knows how it is proper for this Vocation to be administered.” God saves on the basis of exercised faith because it seemed right to Him to do so. At this point, I’m going to be more nuanced in my view of election than most have ever presented election: while choosing us is “unconditional” on the part of God, who was not forced to save or choose any, election is “conditional” on the part of the individual, who can only be elect by faith in Christ. While Calvinists focus on the earlier verses of Ephesians 1 which say, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (v.4), they neglect latter verses in the same chapter such as Eph. 1:13---“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” How does salvation come? First, a person hears the gospel (“after you heard the word of truth, the gospel”); then the person believes the gospel (“you also trusted...the gospel of your salvation”); last but not least, the person is sealed with the Holy Spirit (“having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”).
Salvation is never recorded in the Scriptures as coming to us by some predetermined decree from eternity past that had certain names on a list that were labeled
“elect.” Salvation comes when one hears the word, understands it, and, grace going before (prevenient grace), exercises the faith the Spirit of Grace imparts to him or her to believe the gospel message. If God wanted it to be “already predetermined,” then what need would there even be for a gospel message? If God has already “singled out” the few He wants and damned the rest, who needs to believe any sort of gospel?
And this is where Calvinism is seen for the horrid theology it really is. Here is once more, what authors David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn had to say about unconditional election:
“His eternal choice of particular sinners for salvation WAS NOT BASED UPON ANY FORESEEN ACT OR RESPONSE ON THE PART OF THOSE SELECTED, but was based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will” (“The Five Points,” page 27).
Notice the phrase in caps? Certain individuals were chosen, according to the writers, without regard to faith. But if this is true, then why is it that, according to Ephesians, that one must hear the word, believe, and THEN receive the Holy Spirit?
“In Him you trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13).
Why must any of this occur if God chose to save “unconditionally”? To save “unconditionally” means to save without regard to anything within the creature, including the faith that God provides. So, if Calvinists like J.I. Packer wanna state that faith is a gift (which I too, believe), but God only provides faith to the elect ones, why then, must God provide faith? If God intends to regenerate sinners before they exercise God-given faith, then what is the faith needed for at all?
I suspect that Calvinists have spent too much time focusing on the “pre-creation decrees” of infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism...and not enough on the context of Ephesians chapter 1. Maybe it’s high time they do that...
In yesterday’s post, I focused on Arminius’s words regarding the call of man to salvation. I showed in that post that God is the one who gets the praise for man’s salvation, from beginning to end; that, although man must receive the gift of salvation in order to be saved, Arminius never credits man with the work of salvation but instead gives glory to God. Before I get started again today, let me just say that I am surprised that J.I. Packer and other Calvinists are able to make such comments like the quote above in print for folks all over the world to see. And what’s so sad is that Calvinists are completely misguided when it comes to Classical Arminian theology...and most of the world just seems to focus on “foreseen faith” as the reason why they choose not to be Arminian, instead of reading Arminius for themselves and finding out whether or not he speaks truth. If you’ve ever picked up a copy of Arminius’s “Works” and thumbed through them long enough, you could not make the statement above that Packer makes; you would not be able to claim that Arminians hold to their theology because of “philosophical commitments”. Rather, we hold to the philosophy we do because of the Scriptures themselves. Our theology determines our philosophy, not the other way around.
In today’s post, I wanna talk on the topic of “The Divine Pleasure”: that is, What pleases God? What is God pleased to do in the world? If “God does whatever He pleases,” as the Calvinists say, then what pleases God? If we can look at the Scriptures and see what God does, then we can resolve within ourselves that God does what He does because it is pleasing to Him. After all, God is not bound by anyone or anything outside of Himself to do what He does; He is free to do as He so chooses (this is where Classical Arminians DO agree with our Calvinist brethren). In this sense, Classical Arminians, like Calvinists, hold to a form of “unconditional” election---that being, that God did not have to save anyone. He was not obligated to save us, since we are responsible for our sin in Adam (Rom. 5).
I’m gonna stick around Arminius’s words on “The Vocation of Men to Salvation” (Disputation XVI), which is where I came from yesterday. Regarding the way salvation is dispensed, Arminius writes the following:
“The Disposing Cause is the wisdom and justice of God; by which HE KNOWS HOW IT IS PROPER FOR THIS VOCATION TO BE ADMINISTERED, and wills it to be dispensed as it is lawful and befitting; and from which is formed the Decree of his will concerning the administration and its mode. (1 Cor. i,17,18.)” (Arminius, “Works,” II:232).
Why is salvation dispensed as a gift received by faith? Because this pleases God; the way salvation is granted to sinners is the way God saw fit to do things. If He had wanted to grant salvation another way, then He would have been free and right to do it another way. The fact that salvation comes the way it does testifies to the freedom of God, by which He is just in His doings.
In their description of “Unconditional Election,” Steele, Thomas,and Quinn write the following:
“The doctrine of election declares that God, before the foundation of the world, chose certain individuals from among the fallen members of Adam’s race to be the objects of His undeserved favor. These, and these only, He purposed to save. GOD COULD HAVE CHOSEN TO SAVE ALL MEN (FOR HE HAD THE POWER AND AUTHORITY TO DO SO) OR HE COULD HAVE CHOSEN TO SAVE NONE (FOR HE WAS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO SHOW MERCY TO ANY)---but He did neither. Instead, He chose to save some and to exclude others. His eternal choice of particular sinners for salvation was not based upon any foreseen act or response on the part of those selected, but was based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will. Thus, ELECTION WAS NOT DETERMINED BY, OR CONDITIONED UPON, ANYTHING THAT MEN WOULD DO, BUT RESULTED ENTIRELY FROM GOD’S SELF-DETERMINED PURPOSE” (“The Five Points of Calvinism,” page 27).
It is no secret that David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn are all Calvinist (at least Molinist) in their theology, since they argue for unconditional election. However (and this might shock most who read this), Classical Arminians ACTUALLY AGREE WITH THE ABOVE STATEMENT IN BOLD CAPS! We do not argue in our theology that God “had” to save us, nor do we argue that God “could not have done it any other way.” We believe that God could have left all of us drowning in sin, destined for Hell, and God would have been just in so doing. The Lord didn’t “owe” us salvation in any shape, form or fashion. This is the “Reformed” side of my theology on display.
BUT...and this is where my “Arminian” side comes out, we believe, contra Calvinists, that God decided to save man by the exercise of his God-given faith! While it certainly was a possibility of God’s to save certain persons, we don’t believe that God chose certain individuals and passed by others; rather, God decided to save or damn on the basis of faith. The classic passage of all time, John 3:16-18, tells us of the plan of God and His way of salvation: “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18, NKJV). Those who follow in the theology of James Arminius himself cannot say that God was obligated to save every single individual. This would be like saying that God was obligated to save every single Jew because of their ethnicity (Rom. 9), which is a ludicrous statement to make! God did not have to come for every person, but He did because this fit “the good pleasure of His will” (Eph. 1:9,11).
God administers salvation the way He does because “He knows how it is proper for this Vocation to be administered.” God saves on the basis of exercised faith because it seemed right to Him to do so. At this point, I’m going to be more nuanced in my view of election than most have ever presented election: while choosing us is “unconditional” on the part of God, who was not forced to save or choose any, election is “conditional” on the part of the individual, who can only be elect by faith in Christ. While Calvinists focus on the earlier verses of Ephesians 1 which say, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (v.4), they neglect latter verses in the same chapter such as Eph. 1:13---“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” How does salvation come? First, a person hears the gospel (“after you heard the word of truth, the gospel”); then the person believes the gospel (“you also trusted...the gospel of your salvation”); last but not least, the person is sealed with the Holy Spirit (“having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”).
Salvation is never recorded in the Scriptures as coming to us by some predetermined decree from eternity past that had certain names on a list that were labeled
“elect.” Salvation comes when one hears the word, understands it, and, grace going before (prevenient grace), exercises the faith the Spirit of Grace imparts to him or her to believe the gospel message. If God wanted it to be “already predetermined,” then what need would there even be for a gospel message? If God has already “singled out” the few He wants and damned the rest, who needs to believe any sort of gospel?
And this is where Calvinism is seen for the horrid theology it really is. Here is once more, what authors David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn had to say about unconditional election:
“His eternal choice of particular sinners for salvation WAS NOT BASED UPON ANY FORESEEN ACT OR RESPONSE ON THE PART OF THOSE SELECTED, but was based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will” (“The Five Points,” page 27).
Notice the phrase in caps? Certain individuals were chosen, according to the writers, without regard to faith. But if this is true, then why is it that, according to Ephesians, that one must hear the word, believe, and THEN receive the Holy Spirit?
“In Him you trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph. 1:13).
Why must any of this occur if God chose to save “unconditionally”? To save “unconditionally” means to save without regard to anything within the creature, including the faith that God provides. So, if Calvinists like J.I. Packer wanna state that faith is a gift (which I too, believe), but God only provides faith to the elect ones, why then, must God provide faith? If God intends to regenerate sinners before they exercise God-given faith, then what is the faith needed for at all?
I suspect that Calvinists have spent too much time focusing on the “pre-creation decrees” of infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism...and not enough on the context of Ephesians chapter 1. Maybe it’s high time they do that...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Getting the Story Straight, Pt. V-A: Soli Deo Gloria
“Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him” (J.I. Packer, “Introduction” from “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4; quoted by David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn in “The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented, Second Edition. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004, page 3).
Throughout this series of “Getting the Story Straight,” I’ve demonstrated that J.I. Packer is grossly incorrect in his analysis of Arminianism---that is, Arminians are not Pelagian in their theology. Here today, I return to correct another false statement Packer makes about Arminians: that is, that Classical Arminians fail to attribute glory to God...that we attempt to give glory to man for our salvation.
In his Disputation XVI, titled “On the Vocation of Men to Salvation,” Arminius wrote the following:
“We define vocation, A GRACIOUS ACT OF GOD IN CHRIST, by which, through his word and Spirit, He calls forth sinful men, who are liable to condemnation and placed under the dominion of sin, from the condition of the animal life, and from the pollutions and corruptions of this world, (2 Tim. i,9; Matt. xi, 28; 1 Pet. ii,9,10; Gal. i,4; 2 Pet. ii, 20; Romans x, 13-15; 1 Pet. iii,19; Gen. vi,3,) unto ‘the fellowship of Jesus Christ,’ and of his kingdom and its benefits; that, being united unto Him as their Head, they may derive from Him life, sensation, motion, and a plenitude of every spiritual blessing, TO THE GLORY OF GOD and their own salvation. (1 Cor. i,9; Gal. ii,20; Ephes. i,3,6; 2 Thess. ii,13,14)” (Arminius, “Works,” II:231-232).
Arminius deems the call to salvation (vocation) as “a gracious act of God in Christ”; here, we find that it is God’s kindness that brings this about. And this is where Classical Arminians agree with Calvinists: there is nothing outside of God that dictates His actions. God does what He pleases...and He is pleased to call men and women to faith, to grant them life everlasting. Without this benevolence from God, no man or woman could, or would be, saved. Secondly, note that Arminius labels man as unworthy of this call to salvation: “He calls forth sinful men, who are liable to condemnation and placed under the dominion of sin.” The words “sinful men,” “liable to condemnation,” and “under the dominion of sin” tell us what man is and what he deserves---nothing short of Hell itself. So if any man or woman goes to Heaven, it is of nothing they deserve, but of what God has graciously given. This is “Soli Deo Gloria,” a praise to God because only God deserves praise for man’s blessings and eternal bliss with Christ.
Examine the passages Arminius notes at the end of the above quote. In 1 Corinthians 1:9, it is God “by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ the Lord” (NKJV); in Galatians 2:20, it is Christ whom, as Paul says, “loved me and gave Himself for me.” In Ephesians 1:3, it is God the Father “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” And who gets the praise for salvation and all its benefits? “to the praise of the glory of HIS GRACE, by which HE made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). And in 2 Thess. 2:13-14, it is God who “from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” It is God who gets the glory for the salvation of man. Arminius’s references to these verses demonstrates his great desire to give God glory for his salvation. Once again, this is “soli deo Gloria,” for the glory of God alone. Contra Packer, Classical Arminians do not give themselves glory for their salvation. I don’t know if Packer has ever read Arminius, but he and all other Calvinists would do well to read him. They might be surprised that he never once sounds like a Pelagian (and don’t let me mention the fact that he actually refutes Pelagius in his “Works”!).
Arminius then goes into the efficient, inward-moving, and external causes of this vocation to salvation:
“THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THIS VOCATION IS GOD THE FATHER IN THE SON. The Son himself, as appointed by the Father to be the Mediator and the King of his church, calls men by the Holy Spirit; as He is the Spirit of God given to the Mediator...but THIS VOCATION IS SO ADMINISTERED BY THE SPIRIT, THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS HIMSELF ITS EFFECTOR: for He appoints Bishops, sends forth teachers, endues them with gifts, grants them his assistance, and obtains authority for the word and bestows efficacy upon it (Hebrews iii,7; Acts xiii,2; xx,28; 1 Cor. xii,4,7,9,11; Heb. ii,4.)” (II:232).
Who brings about salvation? God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, all three persons of the Trinity play a role in our salvation. With these words, how could anyone say that “Arminians attribute their salvation to themselves?” Do Calvinists not know that we, like they, believe the Scriptures when they teach that “it is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no man may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9)? I don’t see Arminius attributing salvation to man (“soli homo gloria”), but rather “Soli Deo Gloria,” the glory of God.
What is the inward-moving cause of our salvation?
“The Inly-moving Cause is THE GRACE, MERCY, AND ‘LOVE OF GOD OUR SAVIOUR TOWARD MAN;’ (Titus iii,4,5;) by which HE IS INCLINED TO RELIEVE THE MISERY OF SINFUL MAN, AND TO IMPART UNTO HIM ETERNAL FELICITY. (2 Tim. i,9,10.)” (II:232).
Once again, I don’t see man being given glory in this statement at all. Rather, it is God who “is inclined to relieve the misery of sinful man.” God is the one who is stirred to take man out of his tragic state; God is the one who, like the Good Samaritan, sees man in a state of helplessness and picks him up, cares for his wounds, and nurses him back to spiritual health (Luke 10:30-37). Arminius cites 2 Tim. 1:9-10, which states that God called us “not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace” (2 Tim. 1:9). How can Packer look at Classical Arminianism and falsely accuse Classic Arminians of attributing salvation to man?
I will continue to show Arminius’s thought regarding salvation in further posts. For now, let me end by using the words of Roger Olson:
“The common tendency is to impute to Arminianism every false belief...if the same method were used on Calvinism (as some Arminians have), Calvinists would howl in protest. We could argue that the Calvinist God, who predestines some people unconditionally to hell (EVEN IF ONLY BY DECREEING TO PASS OVER THEM IN ELECTION), is not a God of love but an arbitrary, capricious supreme being concerned only with displaying his own glory---even at the cost of the eternal destruction of souls he created. One principle that ought to be observed by all parties to this debate is BEFORE YOU DISAGREE MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND. In other words, we must make sure that we can describe another’s theological position as he or she would describe it before we criticize or condemn. Another guiding principle should be DO NOT IMPUTE TO OTHERS BELIEFS YOU REGARD AS LOGICALLY ENTAILED BY THEIR BELIEFS BUT THAT THEY EXPLICITLY DENY” (Roger Olson, “Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006, page 41).
Both Calvinists and Arminians would do well to heed Roger Olson’s words.
Throughout this series of “Getting the Story Straight,” I’ve demonstrated that J.I. Packer is grossly incorrect in his analysis of Arminianism---that is, Arminians are not Pelagian in their theology. Here today, I return to correct another false statement Packer makes about Arminians: that is, that Classical Arminians fail to attribute glory to God...that we attempt to give glory to man for our salvation.
In his Disputation XVI, titled “On the Vocation of Men to Salvation,” Arminius wrote the following:
“We define vocation, A GRACIOUS ACT OF GOD IN CHRIST, by which, through his word and Spirit, He calls forth sinful men, who are liable to condemnation and placed under the dominion of sin, from the condition of the animal life, and from the pollutions and corruptions of this world, (2 Tim. i,9; Matt. xi, 28; 1 Pet. ii,9,10; Gal. i,4; 2 Pet. ii, 20; Romans x, 13-15; 1 Pet. iii,19; Gen. vi,3,) unto ‘the fellowship of Jesus Christ,’ and of his kingdom and its benefits; that, being united unto Him as their Head, they may derive from Him life, sensation, motion, and a plenitude of every spiritual blessing, TO THE GLORY OF GOD and their own salvation. (1 Cor. i,9; Gal. ii,20; Ephes. i,3,6; 2 Thess. ii,13,14)” (Arminius, “Works,” II:231-232).
Arminius deems the call to salvation (vocation) as “a gracious act of God in Christ”; here, we find that it is God’s kindness that brings this about. And this is where Classical Arminians agree with Calvinists: there is nothing outside of God that dictates His actions. God does what He pleases...and He is pleased to call men and women to faith, to grant them life everlasting. Without this benevolence from God, no man or woman could, or would be, saved. Secondly, note that Arminius labels man as unworthy of this call to salvation: “He calls forth sinful men, who are liable to condemnation and placed under the dominion of sin.” The words “sinful men,” “liable to condemnation,” and “under the dominion of sin” tell us what man is and what he deserves---nothing short of Hell itself. So if any man or woman goes to Heaven, it is of nothing they deserve, but of what God has graciously given. This is “Soli Deo Gloria,” a praise to God because only God deserves praise for man’s blessings and eternal bliss with Christ.
Examine the passages Arminius notes at the end of the above quote. In 1 Corinthians 1:9, it is God “by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ the Lord” (NKJV); in Galatians 2:20, it is Christ whom, as Paul says, “loved me and gave Himself for me.” In Ephesians 1:3, it is God the Father “who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” And who gets the praise for salvation and all its benefits? “to the praise of the glory of HIS GRACE, by which HE made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). And in 2 Thess. 2:13-14, it is God who “from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” It is God who gets the glory for the salvation of man. Arminius’s references to these verses demonstrates his great desire to give God glory for his salvation. Once again, this is “soli deo Gloria,” for the glory of God alone. Contra Packer, Classical Arminians do not give themselves glory for their salvation. I don’t know if Packer has ever read Arminius, but he and all other Calvinists would do well to read him. They might be surprised that he never once sounds like a Pelagian (and don’t let me mention the fact that he actually refutes Pelagius in his “Works”!).
Arminius then goes into the efficient, inward-moving, and external causes of this vocation to salvation:
“THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THIS VOCATION IS GOD THE FATHER IN THE SON. The Son himself, as appointed by the Father to be the Mediator and the King of his church, calls men by the Holy Spirit; as He is the Spirit of God given to the Mediator...but THIS VOCATION IS SO ADMINISTERED BY THE SPIRIT, THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS HIMSELF ITS EFFECTOR: for He appoints Bishops, sends forth teachers, endues them with gifts, grants them his assistance, and obtains authority for the word and bestows efficacy upon it (Hebrews iii,7; Acts xiii,2; xx,28; 1 Cor. xii,4,7,9,11; Heb. ii,4.)” (II:232).
Who brings about salvation? God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, all three persons of the Trinity play a role in our salvation. With these words, how could anyone say that “Arminians attribute their salvation to themselves?” Do Calvinists not know that we, like they, believe the Scriptures when they teach that “it is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no man may boast” (Eph. 2:8-9)? I don’t see Arminius attributing salvation to man (“soli homo gloria”), but rather “Soli Deo Gloria,” the glory of God.
What is the inward-moving cause of our salvation?
“The Inly-moving Cause is THE GRACE, MERCY, AND ‘LOVE OF GOD OUR SAVIOUR TOWARD MAN;’ (Titus iii,4,5;) by which HE IS INCLINED TO RELIEVE THE MISERY OF SINFUL MAN, AND TO IMPART UNTO HIM ETERNAL FELICITY. (2 Tim. i,9,10.)” (II:232).
Once again, I don’t see man being given glory in this statement at all. Rather, it is God who “is inclined to relieve the misery of sinful man.” God is the one who is stirred to take man out of his tragic state; God is the one who, like the Good Samaritan, sees man in a state of helplessness and picks him up, cares for his wounds, and nurses him back to spiritual health (Luke 10:30-37). Arminius cites 2 Tim. 1:9-10, which states that God called us “not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace” (2 Tim. 1:9). How can Packer look at Classical Arminianism and falsely accuse Classic Arminians of attributing salvation to man?
I will continue to show Arminius’s thought regarding salvation in further posts. For now, let me end by using the words of Roger Olson:
“The common tendency is to impute to Arminianism every false belief...if the same method were used on Calvinism (as some Arminians have), Calvinists would howl in protest. We could argue that the Calvinist God, who predestines some people unconditionally to hell (EVEN IF ONLY BY DECREEING TO PASS OVER THEM IN ELECTION), is not a God of love but an arbitrary, capricious supreme being concerned only with displaying his own glory---even at the cost of the eternal destruction of souls he created. One principle that ought to be observed by all parties to this debate is BEFORE YOU DISAGREE MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND. In other words, we must make sure that we can describe another’s theological position as he or she would describe it before we criticize or condemn. Another guiding principle should be DO NOT IMPUTE TO OTHERS BELIEFS YOU REGARD AS LOGICALLY ENTAILED BY THEIR BELIEFS BUT THAT THEY EXPLICITLY DENY” (Roger Olson, “Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities.” Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006, page 41).
Both Calvinists and Arminians would do well to heed Roger Olson’s words.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Getting the Story Straight, Pt. IV: Keeping the Faith
“From these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first, that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching... (5.) It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost” (J.I. Packer, “Introduction” from “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4).
I think that of all the points Packer provides above regarding Arminians, I think number five is probably the most attacked tenet of Arminian theology. In this post, however, my goal is to show biblically why J.I. Packer should conform to Arminian theology and not make fun of it.
First, the concept of “keeping the faith” is vital to the life of the Apostle Paul. In 2 Timothy 4 he writes,
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have KEPT THE FAITH” (2 Tim. 4:7, New King James Version).
Paul evidently felt the Holy Spirit move him to write the words “kept the faith” in his ending words to Timothy about his walk on earth and the reward of eternal life that awaited him. For Calvinists to look at this passage and deny that keeping the faith is important is problematic when one considers that these words, like all the words of Scripture, are “God-breathed” (theopneustos).
What about the words of Revelation 14?
“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who KEEP the commandments of God and the FAITH OF JESUS” (NKJV).
Here we see that the saints “keep the commandments of God” and “keep the faith of Jesus.” Once again, the saints of the Revelation days will be those who hold onto their faith and endure much suffering, including imprisonment and death (Rev. 13:10). So, if keeping faith is important in the days of great tribulation, why wouldn’t keeping the faith be important now?
Packer’s words regarding tenet #5 above mention “it rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith...” Many Christians today often quote the verses of Romans 8:38-39 regarding the fact that “nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God” and say, “See, nothing we do can take us out of our salvation.” However, what about the verse in Jude that states, “keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21)? Why is it that Calvinists see Romans 8:38-39, but not Jude 21? And why is Romans 8:38-39 deemed more important to Calvinists than Jude 21? Shouldn’t “all” of Scripture be as equally valid and important? What about John 17, the famous High Priestly Prayer of Christ? Calvinists use John 17 to advance their theological agenda all the time...but what about John’s words in his epistles, which state that the godly person “purifies Himself” (1 John 3:3)? It seems then, that God provides preservation power, but I am commanded to persevere.
God is not responsible for “persevering” me in the faith; He has given me all I need to endure in the faith. If I don’t, then it’s my own fault.
What does it mean to “keep yourselves in the love of God”? John provides the answer in 1 John 5:
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
To “keep ourselves in the love of God” means “to keep His commandments.”
What these verses teach is that believers themselves must “work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).
This issue of “keeping oneself in a state of grace” applies to every Christian
believer. What are we to do with Paul’s words to the Galatians?
“You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
What about this issue of “falling from grace”? This phrase becomes significant only after we discover to WHOM Paul is speaking. We are given clues of the nature of the congregants throughout the Galatian letter itself:
“But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?” (Gal. 4:9)
The phrase “you have known God” and “are known by God” tell us all we need to know---that the congregation to which Paul writes is a believing congregation of Christians. Should the believers turn to the works of the law now and deny the grace they have been given, they will be labeled as “having fallen from grace.” Keeping oneself in a state of grace, therefore, involves keeping the faith. A simple syllogism will help:
#1. Salvation consists of grace and faith (Eph. 2:8)
#2 we have access by faith into the grace in which we stand (Rom. 5:2)
#3. To give up one’s faith is to deny oneself access to grace (based on Romans 5:2)
#4. Therefore, to fail to keep the faith is to fail to continue in grace
#5. Since salvation consists of grace and faith, to fail to keep faith and continue in God’s grace is to fall from salvation.
There are a ton of verses I could use to support the above syllogism. For example, I could use Acts 13:43 where Paul and Barnabas urged the congregation to “continue in the grace of God.” I could also use Hebrews 12:28, where the writer states that “let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb. 12:28). The word for “let us have” is “exomen,” which means “let us hold onto grace” or “let us keep grace” (laparola.net/greco). This then, refers to keeping oneself in a state of grace, contrary to what J.I. Packer claims.
Next in Packer’s attack is the phrase “keeping up their faith.” I’ve already shown above that Paul evaluates his own walk with God from beginning to end with the words “I have finished the race, I have KEPT THE FAITH” (2 Tim. 4:7). But there are other passages of Scripture as well that indicate to the reader that to continue believing is the key to obtaining final salvation. For example, let’s look at John’s words:
“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you MAY CONTINUE TO BELIEVE in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13, NKJV).
John is encouraging them to “remain believing.” Why is this, if one does not have to keep the faith? And this does not take into account Jesus’ words in the Gospels (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8) regarding the Parable of the Sower and the seed that fell on stony/rocky soil. If you compare the three Gospel passages just mentioned, you will find that Matthew 13:21 states that the seed “endures for a while”---which is in contrast to Luke 8:13, where the seed on rocky soil “believes for a while.” An interesting question to ask is, “Why do Matthew and Luke use ‘endure’ and ‘believe’ interchangeably in this parable? If endurance has nothing to do with “keeping the faith” (which goes against what Paul believed, 2 Tim. 4), why then, do the writers replace one word (“faith”) with another (“endurance”), or vice versa? Why is the Hebrew congregation told not to throw away their “full assurance of faith”, because they need endurance (Heb. 10:35-36)? What about the fact that “faith and perseverance of the saints” is a good phrase in Revelation (13:10; 14:12)? Not only do we find faith and perseverance linked in Revelation, but even the famous chapter of Romans 8 does the same: while it tells us of the hope of our salvation, it also states that we wait for our faith to become sight “with perseverance” (Rom. 8:25).
I could go on, but I will digress here. My point is this: with all the evidence I’ve provided, how can J.I. Packer be correct in his claims? He isn’t. Instead, he denies keeping ourselves in the grace of God (“continuing in the grace of God”) as well as keeping the faith (2 Tim. 4) and so forth. It seems to me that what Packer is really saying in all this is that a person doesn’t even need faith to be saved. This, however, contradicts so much of Scripture, particularly Hebrews 11:6. My final question to you is, “Do you believe Scripture or Packer?” The choice is yours.
I think that of all the points Packer provides above regarding Arminians, I think number five is probably the most attacked tenet of Arminian theology. In this post, however, my goal is to show biblically why J.I. Packer should conform to Arminian theology and not make fun of it.
First, the concept of “keeping the faith” is vital to the life of the Apostle Paul. In 2 Timothy 4 he writes,
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have KEPT THE FAITH” (2 Tim. 4:7, New King James Version).
Paul evidently felt the Holy Spirit move him to write the words “kept the faith” in his ending words to Timothy about his walk on earth and the reward of eternal life that awaited him. For Calvinists to look at this passage and deny that keeping the faith is important is problematic when one considers that these words, like all the words of Scripture, are “God-breathed” (theopneustos).
What about the words of Revelation 14?
“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who KEEP the commandments of God and the FAITH OF JESUS” (NKJV).
Here we see that the saints “keep the commandments of God” and “keep the faith of Jesus.” Once again, the saints of the Revelation days will be those who hold onto their faith and endure much suffering, including imprisonment and death (Rev. 13:10). So, if keeping faith is important in the days of great tribulation, why wouldn’t keeping the faith be important now?
Packer’s words regarding tenet #5 above mention “it rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith...” Many Christians today often quote the verses of Romans 8:38-39 regarding the fact that “nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God” and say, “See, nothing we do can take us out of our salvation.” However, what about the verse in Jude that states, “keep yourselves in the love of God” (Jude 21)? Why is it that Calvinists see Romans 8:38-39, but not Jude 21? And why is Romans 8:38-39 deemed more important to Calvinists than Jude 21? Shouldn’t “all” of Scripture be as equally valid and important? What about John 17, the famous High Priestly Prayer of Christ? Calvinists use John 17 to advance their theological agenda all the time...but what about John’s words in his epistles, which state that the godly person “purifies Himself” (1 John 3:3)? It seems then, that God provides preservation power, but I am commanded to persevere.
God is not responsible for “persevering” me in the faith; He has given me all I need to endure in the faith. If I don’t, then it’s my own fault.
What does it mean to “keep yourselves in the love of God”? John provides the answer in 1 John 5:
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
To “keep ourselves in the love of God” means “to keep His commandments.”
What these verses teach is that believers themselves must “work out [their] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12).
This issue of “keeping oneself in a state of grace” applies to every Christian
believer. What are we to do with Paul’s words to the Galatians?
“You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
What about this issue of “falling from grace”? This phrase becomes significant only after we discover to WHOM Paul is speaking. We are given clues of the nature of the congregants throughout the Galatian letter itself:
“But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage?” (Gal. 4:9)
The phrase “you have known God” and “are known by God” tell us all we need to know---that the congregation to which Paul writes is a believing congregation of Christians. Should the believers turn to the works of the law now and deny the grace they have been given, they will be labeled as “having fallen from grace.” Keeping oneself in a state of grace, therefore, involves keeping the faith. A simple syllogism will help:
#1. Salvation consists of grace and faith (Eph. 2:8)
#2 we have access by faith into the grace in which we stand (Rom. 5:2)
#3. To give up one’s faith is to deny oneself access to grace (based on Romans 5:2)
#4. Therefore, to fail to keep the faith is to fail to continue in grace
#5. Since salvation consists of grace and faith, to fail to keep faith and continue in God’s grace is to fall from salvation.
There are a ton of verses I could use to support the above syllogism. For example, I could use Acts 13:43 where Paul and Barnabas urged the congregation to “continue in the grace of God.” I could also use Hebrews 12:28, where the writer states that “let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb. 12:28). The word for “let us have” is “exomen,” which means “let us hold onto grace” or “let us keep grace” (laparola.net/greco). This then, refers to keeping oneself in a state of grace, contrary to what J.I. Packer claims.
Next in Packer’s attack is the phrase “keeping up their faith.” I’ve already shown above that Paul evaluates his own walk with God from beginning to end with the words “I have finished the race, I have KEPT THE FAITH” (2 Tim. 4:7). But there are other passages of Scripture as well that indicate to the reader that to continue believing is the key to obtaining final salvation. For example, let’s look at John’s words:
“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you MAY CONTINUE TO BELIEVE in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13, NKJV).
John is encouraging them to “remain believing.” Why is this, if one does not have to keep the faith? And this does not take into account Jesus’ words in the Gospels (Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8) regarding the Parable of the Sower and the seed that fell on stony/rocky soil. If you compare the three Gospel passages just mentioned, you will find that Matthew 13:21 states that the seed “endures for a while”---which is in contrast to Luke 8:13, where the seed on rocky soil “believes for a while.” An interesting question to ask is, “Why do Matthew and Luke use ‘endure’ and ‘believe’ interchangeably in this parable? If endurance has nothing to do with “keeping the faith” (which goes against what Paul believed, 2 Tim. 4), why then, do the writers replace one word (“faith”) with another (“endurance”), or vice versa? Why is the Hebrew congregation told not to throw away their “full assurance of faith”, because they need endurance (Heb. 10:35-36)? What about the fact that “faith and perseverance of the saints” is a good phrase in Revelation (13:10; 14:12)? Not only do we find faith and perseverance linked in Revelation, but even the famous chapter of Romans 8 does the same: while it tells us of the hope of our salvation, it also states that we wait for our faith to become sight “with perseverance” (Rom. 8:25).
I could go on, but I will digress here. My point is this: with all the evidence I’ve provided, how can J.I. Packer be correct in his claims? He isn’t. Instead, he denies keeping ourselves in the grace of God (“continuing in the grace of God”) as well as keeping the faith (2 Tim. 4) and so forth. It seems to me that what Packer is really saying in all this is that a person doesn’t even need faith to be saved. This, however, contradicts so much of Scripture, particularly Hebrews 11:6. My final question to you is, “Do you believe Scripture or Packer?” The choice is yours.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Getting the Story Straight, Pt. III: Total Depravity
“...from these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions; first, that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal. Hence they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions: (1.) Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him...” (J.I. Packer, “Introduction” in “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4)
For the last two posts, I’ve been combating J.I. Packer’s ideas regarding Classical Arminian theology. Today, I’m back to do this once again---this time, through discussion of the biblical notion of depravity.
Packer claims that Arminians believe that man is not completely corrupted by sin; however, this is not true at all. For my defense, I provide the words of Arminius:
“...having turned away from the light of his own mind and his Chief Good, which is God, or, at least, having turned towards that Chief Good not in the manner in which he ought to have done, and besides having turned in mind and heart towards an inferior good, he transgressed the command given to him for life. By this foul deed, he precipitated himself from that noble and elevated condition into a state of the deepest infelicity, which is UNDER THE DOMINION OF SIN...in this state, the free will of man towards the True Good is not only WOUNDED, MAIMED, INFIRM, BENT, AND WEAKENED; BUT IT IS ALSO IMPRISONED, DESTROYED, AND LOST; AND ITS POWERS ARE NOT ONLY DEBILITATED AND USELESS UNLESS THEY BE ASSISTED BY GRACE, BUT IT HAS NO POWERS WHATEVER EXCEPT SUCH AS ARE EXCITED BY DIVINE GRACE: for Christ has said, ‘Without me ye can do nothing’” (James Arminius, “Works,” II:192).
Adam’s sin was imputed to all of the human race, in such a way that our will to choose the good is imprisoned to sin and evil...and, without grace, we would never choose the good, never accept Christ, never submit to His Lordship. Arminius even went so far as to say, “It [free will of man] has no powers whatever except such as are excited by divine grace.” It is the grace of God that “makes alive” the will, not man himself.
Arminius goes into greater detail regarding the depravity of man. He starts with the mind of man:
“The mind of man, in this state, is dark, destitute of the saving knowledge of God, and, according to the Apostle, incapable of those things which belong to the Spirit of God: For ‘the animal man has no perception of the things of the Spirit of God;’ (1 Cor. ii, 14;) in which passage man is called ‘animal,’ not from the animal body, but from ‘anima,’ the soul itself, which is the most noble part of man, but which is so encompassed about with the clouds of ignorance, as to be distinguished by the epithets of ‘vain’ and ‘foolish’; and men themselves, thus darkened in their minds, are denominated ‘mad’ or foolish, ‘fools,’ and even ‘darkness’ itself. (Rom. I, 21, 22; Ephes. iv, 17, 18; Titus iii, 3; Ephes. v, 8) This is true, not only when...it [the mind] is preparing to form conclusions by the understanding; BUT LIKEWISE WHEN, BY SIMPLE APPREHENSION, IT WOULD RECEIVE THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL EXTERNALLY OFFERED TO IT: for the human mind judges that to be ‘foolishness’ which is the most excellent ‘Wisdom’ of God (1 Cor. i,18,24)” (Arminius, “Works,” II:193).
Man is so depraved that, not only is his thinking about ordinary life skewed (for instance, man cannot escape his presuppositions), but he can’t even receive the Gospel naturally on his own. To receive the Gospel, man must be granted grace by the Spirit of Grace Himself. And why? because of 1 Corinthians 1, a passage Arminius quotes as to say that “the human mind judges that to be ‘foolishness’ which is the most excellent ‘Wisdom’ of God.” In addition, Arminius cites other passages in his quote, such as Romans 1, Ephesians 4 and 5, etc. to show that he believes man is naturally born with a darkened mind, a mind that desperately needs to be illuminated and enlightened by the Lord Himself if the son or daughter of Adam and Eve will ever come to faith.
Next, the affections and heart are affected by sin:
“it [the heart] hates and has an aversion to that which is truly good and pleasing to God; but it loves and pursues what is evil. The Apostle was unable to afford a more luminous description of this perverseness, than he has given in the following words: ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God’ (Rom. viii, 7). For this reason, the human heart itself is very often called deceitful and perverse, uncircumcised, hard and stony;’(Jer. xiii, 10; xvii,9; Ezek. xxxvi, 26:) Its imagination is said to be ‘only evil from his very youth;’ (Gen. vi, 5; viii, 21;) and ‘out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, &c. (Matt. xv,19.)” (Works II:193).
Arminius quotes from Romans 8:7 to show that those who are not saved cannot please God. He also shows that the heart is deceitful and wicked, and that man’s every thought is evil, according to the words of the Lord Himself in Genesis 6. Arminius’ work here shows us that he very much held to Reformed theology, as biblical a view on depravity (at least) as any follower of John Calvin.
J.I. Packer notes in his quote above that Arminians don’t believe in the total inability of man. Well, let’s try out Arminius’ words on the helplessness of the human condition:
“Exactly correspondent to this darkness of the mind, and perverseness of the heart, is THE UTTER WEAKNESS OF ALL THE POWERS TO PERFORM THAT WHICH IS TRULY GOOD...the subjoined sayings of Christ serve to describe this impotence: ‘A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.’ (Matt. vii, 18.) ‘How can ye, being evil, speak good things?’ (xii, 34.) The following relates to the good which is properly prescribed in the Gospel: ‘No man can come to me, except the Father draw him:’ (John vi, 44:)...the Apostle says, ‘when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin wrought in us,’ or flourished energetically (Rom. vii, 5.) To the same purpose are all those passages in which the man existing in this state is said to be under the power of sin and Satan, reduced to the condition of a slave, and ‘taken captive by the Devil.’ (Rom. vi,20; 2 Tim.ii,26.)” (“Works,” II:194).
In Arminius’s description of human inability, he notes the favorite verse used by Calvinists in their assessment of depravity: John 6:44. Yes, as surprising as it may seem, Arminians DO believe in the depravity of man!!!
What I’ve provided here should be enough. The point of Arminius citations here is to say to Packer and the Calvinist clan that we, like them, believe in human depravity and human inability. We do not argue some “semi-Pelagian” or “Pelagian” notion of man where the only thing man lost was his knowledge in the Garden of Eden; rather, we argue that man lost his power to will the spiritual Good that day...and that, without God’s awakening, enabling, and sustaining grace, man cannot place himself, and will not be placed, on the path that leads to glory. In man’s natural state, he is drowning in the ocean of life, and desperately needs the Lord Jesus Christ to throw him a lifeline. Without it, man only has the second death to look forward to.
For the last two posts, I’ve been combating J.I. Packer’s ideas regarding Classical Arminian theology. Today, I’m back to do this once again---this time, through discussion of the biblical notion of depravity.
Packer claims that Arminians believe that man is not completely corrupted by sin; however, this is not true at all. For my defense, I provide the words of Arminius:
“...having turned away from the light of his own mind and his Chief Good, which is God, or, at least, having turned towards that Chief Good not in the manner in which he ought to have done, and besides having turned in mind and heart towards an inferior good, he transgressed the command given to him for life. By this foul deed, he precipitated himself from that noble and elevated condition into a state of the deepest infelicity, which is UNDER THE DOMINION OF SIN...in this state, the free will of man towards the True Good is not only WOUNDED, MAIMED, INFIRM, BENT, AND WEAKENED; BUT IT IS ALSO IMPRISONED, DESTROYED, AND LOST; AND ITS POWERS ARE NOT ONLY DEBILITATED AND USELESS UNLESS THEY BE ASSISTED BY GRACE, BUT IT HAS NO POWERS WHATEVER EXCEPT SUCH AS ARE EXCITED BY DIVINE GRACE: for Christ has said, ‘Without me ye can do nothing’” (James Arminius, “Works,” II:192).
Adam’s sin was imputed to all of the human race, in such a way that our will to choose the good is imprisoned to sin and evil...and, without grace, we would never choose the good, never accept Christ, never submit to His Lordship. Arminius even went so far as to say, “It [free will of man] has no powers whatever except such as are excited by divine grace.” It is the grace of God that “makes alive” the will, not man himself.
Arminius goes into greater detail regarding the depravity of man. He starts with the mind of man:
“The mind of man, in this state, is dark, destitute of the saving knowledge of God, and, according to the Apostle, incapable of those things which belong to the Spirit of God: For ‘the animal man has no perception of the things of the Spirit of God;’ (1 Cor. ii, 14;) in which passage man is called ‘animal,’ not from the animal body, but from ‘anima,’ the soul itself, which is the most noble part of man, but which is so encompassed about with the clouds of ignorance, as to be distinguished by the epithets of ‘vain’ and ‘foolish’; and men themselves, thus darkened in their minds, are denominated ‘mad’ or foolish, ‘fools,’ and even ‘darkness’ itself. (Rom. I, 21, 22; Ephes. iv, 17, 18; Titus iii, 3; Ephes. v, 8) This is true, not only when...it [the mind] is preparing to form conclusions by the understanding; BUT LIKEWISE WHEN, BY SIMPLE APPREHENSION, IT WOULD RECEIVE THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL EXTERNALLY OFFERED TO IT: for the human mind judges that to be ‘foolishness’ which is the most excellent ‘Wisdom’ of God (1 Cor. i,18,24)” (Arminius, “Works,” II:193).
Man is so depraved that, not only is his thinking about ordinary life skewed (for instance, man cannot escape his presuppositions), but he can’t even receive the Gospel naturally on his own. To receive the Gospel, man must be granted grace by the Spirit of Grace Himself. And why? because of 1 Corinthians 1, a passage Arminius quotes as to say that “the human mind judges that to be ‘foolishness’ which is the most excellent ‘Wisdom’ of God.” In addition, Arminius cites other passages in his quote, such as Romans 1, Ephesians 4 and 5, etc. to show that he believes man is naturally born with a darkened mind, a mind that desperately needs to be illuminated and enlightened by the Lord Himself if the son or daughter of Adam and Eve will ever come to faith.
Next, the affections and heart are affected by sin:
“it [the heart] hates and has an aversion to that which is truly good and pleasing to God; but it loves and pursues what is evil. The Apostle was unable to afford a more luminous description of this perverseness, than he has given in the following words: ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God’ (Rom. viii, 7). For this reason, the human heart itself is very often called deceitful and perverse, uncircumcised, hard and stony;’(Jer. xiii, 10; xvii,9; Ezek. xxxvi, 26:) Its imagination is said to be ‘only evil from his very youth;’ (Gen. vi, 5; viii, 21;) and ‘out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, &c. (Matt. xv,19.)” (Works II:193).
Arminius quotes from Romans 8:7 to show that those who are not saved cannot please God. He also shows that the heart is deceitful and wicked, and that man’s every thought is evil, according to the words of the Lord Himself in Genesis 6. Arminius’ work here shows us that he very much held to Reformed theology, as biblical a view on depravity (at least) as any follower of John Calvin.
J.I. Packer notes in his quote above that Arminians don’t believe in the total inability of man. Well, let’s try out Arminius’ words on the helplessness of the human condition:
“Exactly correspondent to this darkness of the mind, and perverseness of the heart, is THE UTTER WEAKNESS OF ALL THE POWERS TO PERFORM THAT WHICH IS TRULY GOOD...the subjoined sayings of Christ serve to describe this impotence: ‘A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.’ (Matt. vii, 18.) ‘How can ye, being evil, speak good things?’ (xii, 34.) The following relates to the good which is properly prescribed in the Gospel: ‘No man can come to me, except the Father draw him:’ (John vi, 44:)...the Apostle says, ‘when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin wrought in us,’ or flourished energetically (Rom. vii, 5.) To the same purpose are all those passages in which the man existing in this state is said to be under the power of sin and Satan, reduced to the condition of a slave, and ‘taken captive by the Devil.’ (Rom. vi,20; 2 Tim.ii,26.)” (“Works,” II:194).
In Arminius’s description of human inability, he notes the favorite verse used by Calvinists in their assessment of depravity: John 6:44. Yes, as surprising as it may seem, Arminians DO believe in the depravity of man!!!
What I’ve provided here should be enough. The point of Arminius citations here is to say to Packer and the Calvinist clan that we, like them, believe in human depravity and human inability. We do not argue some “semi-Pelagian” or “Pelagian” notion of man where the only thing man lost was his knowledge in the Garden of Eden; rather, we argue that man lost his power to will the spiritual Good that day...and that, without God’s awakening, enabling, and sustaining grace, man cannot place himself, and will not be placed, on the path that leads to glory. In man’s natural state, he is drowning in the ocean of life, and desperately needs the Lord Jesus Christ to throw him a lifeline. Without it, man only has the second death to look forward to.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Getting the Story Straight, Pt. II: The Gift of Faith in Classical Arminian Theology
“From these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first, that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of Him...hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following...(4.) Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (there is no such gift)...” (J.I. Packer, “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ,” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4)
The quote above is just a portion of what I quoted yesterday regarding J.I. Packer’s comments regarding Arminianism. I’ve been reading a new book lately, called “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609” by Keith Stanglin, PhD. In it, Stanglin has a section on Arminius’s theology of faith. This section got me to thinking about Packer’s comments regarding Arminians and how they view faith (and thus, interpret the Scriptures).
Before I disagree with Packer, I desire to understand his comments above. According to Packer’s own words, Arminians do not believe that faith is a gift (“there is no such gift [of faith]”) and that faith is not given by God or brought about by Him (“since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, it cannot be caused by God...”).
Now, having gotten Packer’s words precisely, I intend to refute his statements regarding Classical Arminianism. To approach this subject, I will quote the words of Arminius himself. By so doing, I hope to show that all who claim to be “Classical Arminian” will embrace the theology of James Arminius in its entirety---including his theology of faith.
Keith Stanglin writes:
“Arminius underscored that saving faith is the gift of God to humanity...he went on to say, ‘It is a supernatural, not natural, work and gift.’...Arminius insisted that although predestination is based on and in a sense posterior to foreseen faith, nevertheless IT IS GOD’S GRACE THAT CAUSES THIS FAITH, for ‘SALVATION AND FAITH ARE GOD’S GIFTS’” (Keith Stanglin, “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609.” Leiden, Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007, page 96; Arminius, “Works,” I:750).
In this quoted statement of Arminius by Stanglin, we see that Arminius refutes two points: first, he states that faith is a gift; secondly, he states that “It is God’s grace that causes this faith,” which means that the origin of faith is God, not man. This is why “it [faith] is a supernatural, not natural, work and gift.”
Arminius was accused of what J.I. Packer above accuses contemporary Arminians of: denying that faith is the gift of God. Arminius himself had this response to the charges he faced:
“A rich man gives a poor and famishing beggar (egeno) alms by which he may be able to sustain himself and his family. Does it cease to be a pure, undiluted gift (donum purum putum) because this beggar extends his hand for receiving (accipiendum)? Can it be said with propriety (commode) that the alms depended partly on the liberality of the one giving and partly on the liberty of the one receiving, though THE LATTER WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE ALMS UNLESS HE HAD RECEIVED IT BY EXTENDING THE HAND? Can it be rightly said, because the beggar is always prepared for receiving, that he can by [any] mode will (velit) to have the alms or not have it? If these cannot be truly said, how much less about the gift of faith, for whose receiving many more acts of divine grace are required” (Arminius, “Works,” 2:52).
Arminius, through this example, compares the one who believes to the poor beggar who receives alms (money) from a rich man. The poor beggar had to receive the money, otherwise, he would not have it; but the credit goes to the rich man who gave the alms to the needy beggar out of his own good heart. In the same way, the sinner must “receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17, HCSB) in order to be saved; but how does the needy sinner’s “receiving” Christ translate to, “he MERITED salvation by accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior”? It doesn’t. Receiving salvation is a response to the gospel call itself; but IT IS THE LORD WHO CALLS! And it is the Lord who has purchased our salvation, who has earned our allegiance and love---because He went to the Cross and took our place, served as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. All of the Father’s wrath was placed on the Son for our sin. He bore our punishment, took our place, and gave us His righteousness; and for that, all the credit in the world goes to Him and not us.
Arminius asks further:
“Who has merited that the blessing be offered to himself; WHO HAS MERITED THAT ANY GRACE WHATSOEVER BE CONFERRED ON HIMSELF FOR EMBRACING (amplectendum) THAT [BLESSING]? ARE NOT ALL THOSE THINGS OF GRATUITIOUS DIVINE FAVOR? And if they are, is not God to be celebrated on account of those things with perpetual praises by those who, being made participants of this grace, have received (acceperunt) the blessing of God?” (James Arminius, “Works,” 3:445)
No one can merit the favor they have received, because grace is “gratuitious divine favor,” or, as we like to call it, “UNMERITED favor.” If something is “unmerited,” then this means that we cannot work for it or earn it. This is where Paul’s argument in Romans 4 about grace in contrast to wages comes in: wages are something someone earns, someone is due; grace, however, is something that someone is simply given by choice of the Giver. Grace is not something that someone can earn, no matter how great the human attempt.
As if to drive home his point about faith as a gift of God, Arminius states that “God destines these means [to salvation] to no one because of or according to his own merits, BUT FROM PURE, UNDILUTED (PURA PUTA) GRACE” (Arminius, “Disputationes Privatae XLI.x). Last but not least, “To say that a person is saved through the gift of faith is not to acknowledge salvation by any merits, for ‘faith and merit are opposed in the Scriptures’” (Keith Stanglin, “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation,” page 98; Arminius, “Works,” 3:583).
We see this point latent in two texts. First, there is the text of Ephesians 2:8-9---
“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift---not from works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
In this text, we find that the “it” which is characterized as “God’s gift” is “salvation” in the direct passage. However, since faith is a component of salvation, and salvation is a gift, faith must be a gift as well.
The next passage is Romans 12:
“For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as GOD HAS DISTRIBUTED A MEASURE OF FAITH TO EACH ONE” (Romans 12:3, HCSB).
“A measure of faith,” a certain amount of faith, has been given to each believer (for the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit).
I wanted to take time to deal with Arminius’s thoughts on faith in his theology to show J.I. Packer and Calvinists everywhere that Classical Arminians do believe faith to be a gift from God, and they find faith to be “caused” by God in the sense that God gives faith to undeserving sinners. But when Calvinists wrongly espouse Classical Arminian theology, it makes me wonder if Calvinists “strike first” in their mischaracterizations of Arminian theology in order to hide the holes in their own.
The quote above is just a portion of what I quoted yesterday regarding J.I. Packer’s comments regarding Arminianism. I’ve been reading a new book lately, called “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609” by Keith Stanglin, PhD. In it, Stanglin has a section on Arminius’s theology of faith. This section got me to thinking about Packer’s comments regarding Arminians and how they view faith (and thus, interpret the Scriptures).
Before I disagree with Packer, I desire to understand his comments above. According to Packer’s own words, Arminians do not believe that faith is a gift (“there is no such gift [of faith]”) and that faith is not given by God or brought about by Him (“since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, it cannot be caused by God...”).
Now, having gotten Packer’s words precisely, I intend to refute his statements regarding Classical Arminianism. To approach this subject, I will quote the words of Arminius himself. By so doing, I hope to show that all who claim to be “Classical Arminian” will embrace the theology of James Arminius in its entirety---including his theology of faith.
Keith Stanglin writes:
“Arminius underscored that saving faith is the gift of God to humanity...he went on to say, ‘It is a supernatural, not natural, work and gift.’...Arminius insisted that although predestination is based on and in a sense posterior to foreseen faith, nevertheless IT IS GOD’S GRACE THAT CAUSES THIS FAITH, for ‘SALVATION AND FAITH ARE GOD’S GIFTS’” (Keith Stanglin, “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation: The Context, Roots, and Shape of the Leiden Debate, 1603-1609.” Leiden, Boston: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007, page 96; Arminius, “Works,” I:750).
In this quoted statement of Arminius by Stanglin, we see that Arminius refutes two points: first, he states that faith is a gift; secondly, he states that “It is God’s grace that causes this faith,” which means that the origin of faith is God, not man. This is why “it [faith] is a supernatural, not natural, work and gift.”
Arminius was accused of what J.I. Packer above accuses contemporary Arminians of: denying that faith is the gift of God. Arminius himself had this response to the charges he faced:
“A rich man gives a poor and famishing beggar (egeno) alms by which he may be able to sustain himself and his family. Does it cease to be a pure, undiluted gift (donum purum putum) because this beggar extends his hand for receiving (accipiendum)? Can it be said with propriety (commode) that the alms depended partly on the liberality of the one giving and partly on the liberty of the one receiving, though THE LATTER WOULD NOT HAVE HAD THE ALMS UNLESS HE HAD RECEIVED IT BY EXTENDING THE HAND? Can it be rightly said, because the beggar is always prepared for receiving, that he can by [any] mode will (velit) to have the alms or not have it? If these cannot be truly said, how much less about the gift of faith, for whose receiving many more acts of divine grace are required” (Arminius, “Works,” 2:52).
Arminius, through this example, compares the one who believes to the poor beggar who receives alms (money) from a rich man. The poor beggar had to receive the money, otherwise, he would not have it; but the credit goes to the rich man who gave the alms to the needy beggar out of his own good heart. In the same way, the sinner must “receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17, HCSB) in order to be saved; but how does the needy sinner’s “receiving” Christ translate to, “he MERITED salvation by accepting Jesus as his Lord and Savior”? It doesn’t. Receiving salvation is a response to the gospel call itself; but IT IS THE LORD WHO CALLS! And it is the Lord who has purchased our salvation, who has earned our allegiance and love---because He went to the Cross and took our place, served as the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. All of the Father’s wrath was placed on the Son for our sin. He bore our punishment, took our place, and gave us His righteousness; and for that, all the credit in the world goes to Him and not us.
Arminius asks further:
“Who has merited that the blessing be offered to himself; WHO HAS MERITED THAT ANY GRACE WHATSOEVER BE CONFERRED ON HIMSELF FOR EMBRACING (amplectendum) THAT [BLESSING]? ARE NOT ALL THOSE THINGS OF GRATUITIOUS DIVINE FAVOR? And if they are, is not God to be celebrated on account of those things with perpetual praises by those who, being made participants of this grace, have received (acceperunt) the blessing of God?” (James Arminius, “Works,” 3:445)
No one can merit the favor they have received, because grace is “gratuitious divine favor,” or, as we like to call it, “UNMERITED favor.” If something is “unmerited,” then this means that we cannot work for it or earn it. This is where Paul’s argument in Romans 4 about grace in contrast to wages comes in: wages are something someone earns, someone is due; grace, however, is something that someone is simply given by choice of the Giver. Grace is not something that someone can earn, no matter how great the human attempt.
As if to drive home his point about faith as a gift of God, Arminius states that “God destines these means [to salvation] to no one because of or according to his own merits, BUT FROM PURE, UNDILUTED (PURA PUTA) GRACE” (Arminius, “Disputationes Privatae XLI.x). Last but not least, “To say that a person is saved through the gift of faith is not to acknowledge salvation by any merits, for ‘faith and merit are opposed in the Scriptures’” (Keith Stanglin, “Arminius on the Assurance of Salvation,” page 98; Arminius, “Works,” 3:583).
We see this point latent in two texts. First, there is the text of Ephesians 2:8-9---
“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift---not from works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
In this text, we find that the “it” which is characterized as “God’s gift” is “salvation” in the direct passage. However, since faith is a component of salvation, and salvation is a gift, faith must be a gift as well.
The next passage is Romans 12:
“For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as GOD HAS DISTRIBUTED A MEASURE OF FAITH TO EACH ONE” (Romans 12:3, HCSB).
“A measure of faith,” a certain amount of faith, has been given to each believer (for the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit).
I wanted to take time to deal with Arminius’s thoughts on faith in his theology to show J.I. Packer and Calvinists everywhere that Classical Arminians do believe faith to be a gift from God, and they find faith to be “caused” by God in the sense that God gives faith to undeserving sinners. But when Calvinists wrongly espouse Classical Arminian theology, it makes me wonder if Calvinists “strike first” in their mischaracterizations of Arminian theology in order to hide the holes in their own.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Getting the Story Straight, Pt. I
“J.I. Packer, in analyzing the system of thought embodied in the Remonstrance, observes:
‘The theology which it contained (known to history as Arminianism) stemmed from two philosophical principles: first, that divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility; second, that ability limits obligation...from these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first, that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, IT CANNOT BE CAUSED BY GOD, BUT IS EXERCISED INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ABILITY TO BELIEVE MUST BE UNIVERSAL. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions: (1.) Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him, nor (2.) is he ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it. (3.) God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by His foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe. (4.) Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (THERE IS NO SUCH GIFT); what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe. (5.) It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost. Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him” (J.I. Packer, “Introductory Essay,” from “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4. Quoted by David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn in “The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented, Second Edition.” Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004, pp. 2-3).
I know people who, on a daily basis, can never recount events as they happen. Usually, they always have an interpretation of the events that seems to “embellish” the truth, just a bit (we call it “lying”). I don’t know why they choose to lie instead of being honest and telling the truth; but I do know that “truth will win out in the end.” No matter how seemingly perfect the lie, the truth will always come out---whether for better or worse.
My disgust with dishonesty spills over into theology whenever I sit down and read the work of a theologian (usually someone who holds to a dogmatic theology) who cannot accurately espouse the other views. Take Molinism, for example: I attended Dr. Ken Keathley’s class this summer, plus read Molina’s “Concordia,” “Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach” (Ken Keathley’s book), William Lane Craig’s “The Only Wise God,” Kirk R. MacGregor’s “A Molinist-Anabaptist Systematic Theology,” and Thomas Flint’s “Divine Providence: A Molinist Account.” I did these things not to tell you what I’ve read and brag about it; I attended Dr. Keathley’s class and read the five Molinist works because I desire to espouse Molinist theology correctly here at the Center for Theological Studies. No one is making me agree that Molinism (or even Calvinism) is right. I think both theologies have irreconcilable problems...but my beliefs about the two theological systems will not keep me from espousing them correctly. I may disagree, but I will disagree because of the truth of the systems and not because of a misinterpretation regarding them.
J.I. Packer doesn’t get the story straight here in his quote above regarding Arminianism. First, let’s make it clear that Classical Arminians see divine sovereignty and human responsibility as reconcilable concepts. We do not approach these two theological concepts in Scripture and argue that there is no way to make sense of their working together. We hold to a firm view of Romans 9 when we argue that God, in His Sovereignty, established faith as the condition for salvation; and for all who believe, in that very moment, they have become heirs of eternal life. We believe that God’s sovereignty is the foundation for human responsibility. Regarding Packer’s next claim, that we believe that “ability limits obligation,” I think he meant to say that Arminians believe “INABILITY limits obligation.” I’m simply espousing Packer’s beliefs regarding Classical Arminianism.
Regarding his claim though, Packer is right on this one. Classical Arminians believe that if God does not enable every person to believe in Him, then God is the one responsible. We hold firmly to John 3:18 when it says that “he that believes not is condemned already” because he has not believed on the name of the Son of God. If God will condemn a sinner for unbelief, then he or she must be enabled by God to believe. Contra Packer, our view of salvation can be found in the Scriptures.
Packer then goes into what he calls “two Arminian deductions.” The first is that we believe faith, to be genuine, cannot be caused by God “but is exercised independently of Him.” Unfortunately, Packer is wrong once more. Faith itself, as the Scriptures tell us, is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9). As such, faith cannot be exercised “independent” of God. Now, if Packer means that God does not “cause” some to believe and leaves others to their damnation, we answer in the affirmative. We do not believe that God picks certain individuals to be saved and damns others. We believe that faith is dispensed by the Spirit to every individual whenever the Word of God is preached. Paul states this when he tells the Romans, “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ” (Rom. 10:17, HCSB). And the importance of the Word in bringing someone to faith is emphasized when Paul asks, “But how can they call on Him in whom they have not heard? And HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE WITHOUT HEARING ABOUT HIM?” (Rom. 10:14) Whenever someone hears the message of Christ, the Spirit of grace dispenses the grace and faith needed to believe. Yes, we too, like the Calvinist, believe that God must draw someone in order to bring about confession and belief (John 6:44). Where we differ from J.I. Packer and other Calvinists is that, unlike them, we believe that the Spirit influences the unbeliever to profess Christ, not “drag” him up the aisle to force a confession out of him. As a result, the ability to believe is given by the Spirit via special revelation, not general revelation.
I will tackle the five conclusions that Packer lists in upcoming posts.
‘The theology which it contained (known to history as Arminianism) stemmed from two philosophical principles: first, that divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility; second, that ability limits obligation...from these principles, the Arminians drew two deductions: first, that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible act, IT CANNOT BE CAUSED BY GOD, BUT IS EXERCISED INDEPENDENTLY OF HIM; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ABILITY TO BELIEVE MUST BE UNIVERSAL. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions: (1.) Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him, nor (2.) is he ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it. (3.) God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by His foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe. (4.) Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (THERE IS NO SUCH GIFT); what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe. (5.) It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost. Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and, because his own, not God’s in him” (J.I. Packer, “Introductory Essay,” from “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” by John Owen. London: Banner of Truth, 1959, pp. 3-4. Quoted by David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn in “The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented, Second Edition.” Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004, pp. 2-3).
I know people who, on a daily basis, can never recount events as they happen. Usually, they always have an interpretation of the events that seems to “embellish” the truth, just a bit (we call it “lying”). I don’t know why they choose to lie instead of being honest and telling the truth; but I do know that “truth will win out in the end.” No matter how seemingly perfect the lie, the truth will always come out---whether for better or worse.
My disgust with dishonesty spills over into theology whenever I sit down and read the work of a theologian (usually someone who holds to a dogmatic theology) who cannot accurately espouse the other views. Take Molinism, for example: I attended Dr. Ken Keathley’s class this summer, plus read Molina’s “Concordia,” “Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach” (Ken Keathley’s book), William Lane Craig’s “The Only Wise God,” Kirk R. MacGregor’s “A Molinist-Anabaptist Systematic Theology,” and Thomas Flint’s “Divine Providence: A Molinist Account.” I did these things not to tell you what I’ve read and brag about it; I attended Dr. Keathley’s class and read the five Molinist works because I desire to espouse Molinist theology correctly here at the Center for Theological Studies. No one is making me agree that Molinism (or even Calvinism) is right. I think both theologies have irreconcilable problems...but my beliefs about the two theological systems will not keep me from espousing them correctly. I may disagree, but I will disagree because of the truth of the systems and not because of a misinterpretation regarding them.
J.I. Packer doesn’t get the story straight here in his quote above regarding Arminianism. First, let’s make it clear that Classical Arminians see divine sovereignty and human responsibility as reconcilable concepts. We do not approach these two theological concepts in Scripture and argue that there is no way to make sense of their working together. We hold to a firm view of Romans 9 when we argue that God, in His Sovereignty, established faith as the condition for salvation; and for all who believe, in that very moment, they have become heirs of eternal life. We believe that God’s sovereignty is the foundation for human responsibility. Regarding Packer’s next claim, that we believe that “ability limits obligation,” I think he meant to say that Arminians believe “INABILITY limits obligation.” I’m simply espousing Packer’s beliefs regarding Classical Arminianism.
Regarding his claim though, Packer is right on this one. Classical Arminians believe that if God does not enable every person to believe in Him, then God is the one responsible. We hold firmly to John 3:18 when it says that “he that believes not is condemned already” because he has not believed on the name of the Son of God. If God will condemn a sinner for unbelief, then he or she must be enabled by God to believe. Contra Packer, our view of salvation can be found in the Scriptures.
Packer then goes into what he calls “two Arminian deductions.” The first is that we believe faith, to be genuine, cannot be caused by God “but is exercised independently of Him.” Unfortunately, Packer is wrong once more. Faith itself, as the Scriptures tell us, is the gift of God (Eph. 2:8-9). As such, faith cannot be exercised “independent” of God. Now, if Packer means that God does not “cause” some to believe and leaves others to their damnation, we answer in the affirmative. We do not believe that God picks certain individuals to be saved and damns others. We believe that faith is dispensed by the Spirit to every individual whenever the Word of God is preached. Paul states this when he tells the Romans, “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the message about Christ” (Rom. 10:17, HCSB). And the importance of the Word in bringing someone to faith is emphasized when Paul asks, “But how can they call on Him in whom they have not heard? And HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE WITHOUT HEARING ABOUT HIM?” (Rom. 10:14) Whenever someone hears the message of Christ, the Spirit of grace dispenses the grace and faith needed to believe. Yes, we too, like the Calvinist, believe that God must draw someone in order to bring about confession and belief (John 6:44). Where we differ from J.I. Packer and other Calvinists is that, unlike them, we believe that the Spirit influences the unbeliever to profess Christ, not “drag” him up the aisle to force a confession out of him. As a result, the ability to believe is given by the Spirit via special revelation, not general revelation.
I will tackle the five conclusions that Packer lists in upcoming posts.
A Word on Conditional Perseverance: Bberchin and the Five Points of Arminianism, Pt. II
For my thoughts on this video, please see "A Word on Conditional Perseverance," published on August 4, 2010.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: John 17:15 and 1 John 5:18
I love writing posts on divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Here at the Center for Theological Studies, I have written some posts already on these two biblical concepts; but I always love the idea of doing a new post on these same two biblical principles. It is my hope that all Christians everywhere will see that both concepts work together according to Scripture...that neither negates the other.
Today’s match-up will come from John 17:15 and 1 John 5:18. John 17:15 reads:
“I am not praying that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
And 1 John 5:18 reads:
“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the one who is born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18).
In John 17, Jesus is praying what is known as His High Priestly Prayer to God the Father. Christ has done the work of His Father and now, is preparing for the road to the Crucifixion. Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, He begins to pray for His disciples (the seventy or so) as well as those who will come to believe in the Gospel message itself (v. 20). Verse 15, then, has to do with the believers, those disciples (the Twelve as well as others) who decided to follow Christ. He states here that He desires that the believers be preserved from evil (“that You protect them from the evil one”).
This verse has been used by Calvinists who espouse a doctrine they refer to as “The PRESERVATION of the Saints.” Now let me make it clear: I believe in the Lord’s preserving power. I believe that the believer, by faith, has been given preserving grace so as to sustain him in his fight against Satan, sin, and the world. After all, 1 Peter 1:5 states that the believers “are being protected by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Arminius himself states it as thus:
“But two things must be here observed. The first is, that this work of regeneration and illumination is not completed in one moment; but that it is advanced and promoted, from [die] time to time, by daily increase. For ‘our old man is crucified, that the body of sin might be destroyed,’ (Rom. Vi, 6,) and ‘that the inward man may be renewed day by day.’ (2 Cor. iv, 16.) For this reason, in regenerate persons, as long as they inhabit these mortal bodies, ‘the flesh lusteth against the Spirit.’ (Gal. v, 17.) Hence it arises, that THEY CAN NEITHER PERFORM ANY GOOD THING WITHOUT GREAT RESISTANCE AND VIOLENT STRUGGLES, NOR ABSTAIN FROM THE COMMISSION OF EVIL...the second thing to be observed is, that AS THE VERY FIRST COMMENCEMENT OF EVERY GOOD THING, SO LIKEWISE THE PROGRESS, CONTINUANCE AND CONFIRMATION, NAY, EVEN THE PERSEVERANCE IN GOOD, are not from ourselves, but from God through the Holy Spirit. For ‘He who hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ;’ (Phil. I,6;) and ‘we are kept by the power of God through faith.’ (1 Peter i, 5.) ‘The God of all grace makes us perfect, stablishes, strengthens and settles us.’ (i, 10.)” (James Arminius, “Works,” II:195. Translated by James Nichols).
Quoted behind Arminius’s comments on grace is a quote from the church father Augustine:
“Subsequent or following Grace does indeed assist the good purpose of man; but this good purpose would have no existence unless through preceding or preventing Grace. And though the desire of man, which is called good, be assisted by Grace when it begins to be; yet it does not begin without Grace, but is inspired by Him, concerning whom the Apostle writes thus, ‘Thanks be to God, who put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you.’ If God incites any one to have ‘an earnest care’ for others, He will ‘put it into the heart’ of some other person to have ‘an earnest care’ for him’" (Augustinus, Contra 2 Epistl. Pelag. L.2.c.9; quoted by James Nichols in his translation of Arminius; Arminius, “Works,” II:196).
As Arminius states above, the only way the believer can persevere in well-doing is because of the grace of God: “even the perseverance in good, [is] not from ourselves, but from God through the Holy Spirit.” And notice that Arminius also used Augustine’s words regarding “subsequent or following Grace.” This type of grace is what most believers know today as “persevering grace.”
At the same time, however, the grace of God in the life of the believer does not nullify his or her responsibility to persevere. This is why John testifies above in 1 John 5:18 that the “one born of God” preserves or keeps himself from sin.
Arminius had this to say about the actions of the new believer:
“For when a new light and knowledge of God and Christ, and of the Divine Will, have been kindled in his mind; and when new affections, inclinations and motions agreeing with the law of God, have been excited in his heart, and new powers have been produced in him; it comes to pass,---that, being liberated from the kingdom of darkness, and being now made ‘light in the Lord,’ (Ephes. v, 8,) he understands the true and saving Good;---that, after the hardness of his stony heart has been changed into the softness of flesh, and the law of God according to the covenant of grace has been inscribed on it, (Jer. xxxi, 32---35,) he loves and embraces that which is good, just, and holy;---and that, being made capable in Christ, co-operating now with God he prosecutes the Good which he knows and loves, and he begins himself to perform it in deed” (James Arminius, “Works,” II: 194-195).
How do we reconcile such Scriptures that promote the preservation of God with the perseverance of the believer? One such good text that seems to place these two in harmony is Hebrews 13, where the writer gives a benediction of blessing to the persecuted Jews who are scattered all over the world:
“Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus---the great Shepherd of the sheep---with the blood of the everlasting covenant, EQUIP YOU WITH ALL THAT IS GOOD TO DO HIS WILL, working in you what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21, HCSB).
Why is God equipping believers with good things? So that they can “do His will,” perform that which is pleasing in His sight. Divine sovereignty is clearly demonstrated here: God supplies the good. Without God supplying the good, there is no way that you or I could do ANYTHING good in the Christian life. Without God giving us the power to work the good, we would work only evil instead. But God supplies the good not because He will do all the work for us; no---instead, He requires that “we” follow and obey His commands. Since we have been given “the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21), we now have all that we need to live the Spirit-filled life.
So God equips us to work the good. But what happens in moments of temptation or weakness?
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
The Lord provides a way of escape, a way out of temptation, so that we can endure it. God’s faithfulness is demonstrated in that He provides persevering power; my faithfulness is to be demonstrated by enduring the temptation, grabbing ahold of God’s persevering power and choosing to resist the flesh.
As I mentioned above, Calvinists often refer to “the preservation of the saints,” and consider preservation to mean what the Bible calls “perseverance.” However, this is not what the Bible teaches; rather, God provides the power to endure temptation so that I can choose to endure it. I am enabled by God to endure it, but I can resist God’s power and choose to give in. Divine preservation does not cancel out human perseverance, for, if it does, then there is no human responsibility. Still, though, Scripture tells the believer that “you need endurance” (Heb. 10:36); and if the Bible is the ultimate authority in my life, I must believe that I must endure.
Today’s match-up will come from John 17:15 and 1 John 5:18. John 17:15 reads:
“I am not praying that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
And 1 John 5:18 reads:
“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the one who is born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18).
In John 17, Jesus is praying what is known as His High Priestly Prayer to God the Father. Christ has done the work of His Father and now, is preparing for the road to the Crucifixion. Here in the Garden of Gethsemane, He begins to pray for His disciples (the seventy or so) as well as those who will come to believe in the Gospel message itself (v. 20). Verse 15, then, has to do with the believers, those disciples (the Twelve as well as others) who decided to follow Christ. He states here that He desires that the believers be preserved from evil (“that You protect them from the evil one”).
This verse has been used by Calvinists who espouse a doctrine they refer to as “The PRESERVATION of the Saints.” Now let me make it clear: I believe in the Lord’s preserving power. I believe that the believer, by faith, has been given preserving grace so as to sustain him in his fight against Satan, sin, and the world. After all, 1 Peter 1:5 states that the believers “are being protected by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Arminius himself states it as thus:
“But two things must be here observed. The first is, that this work of regeneration and illumination is not completed in one moment; but that it is advanced and promoted, from [die] time to time, by daily increase. For ‘our old man is crucified, that the body of sin might be destroyed,’ (Rom. Vi, 6,) and ‘that the inward man may be renewed day by day.’ (2 Cor. iv, 16.) For this reason, in regenerate persons, as long as they inhabit these mortal bodies, ‘the flesh lusteth against the Spirit.’ (Gal. v, 17.) Hence it arises, that THEY CAN NEITHER PERFORM ANY GOOD THING WITHOUT GREAT RESISTANCE AND VIOLENT STRUGGLES, NOR ABSTAIN FROM THE COMMISSION OF EVIL...the second thing to be observed is, that AS THE VERY FIRST COMMENCEMENT OF EVERY GOOD THING, SO LIKEWISE THE PROGRESS, CONTINUANCE AND CONFIRMATION, NAY, EVEN THE PERSEVERANCE IN GOOD, are not from ourselves, but from God through the Holy Spirit. For ‘He who hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ;’ (Phil. I,6;) and ‘we are kept by the power of God through faith.’ (1 Peter i, 5.) ‘The God of all grace makes us perfect, stablishes, strengthens and settles us.’ (i, 10.)” (James Arminius, “Works,” II:195. Translated by James Nichols).
Quoted behind Arminius’s comments on grace is a quote from the church father Augustine:
“Subsequent or following Grace does indeed assist the good purpose of man; but this good purpose would have no existence unless through preceding or preventing Grace. And though the desire of man, which is called good, be assisted by Grace when it begins to be; yet it does not begin without Grace, but is inspired by Him, concerning whom the Apostle writes thus, ‘Thanks be to God, who put the same earnest care into the heart of Titus for you.’ If God incites any one to have ‘an earnest care’ for others, He will ‘put it into the heart’ of some other person to have ‘an earnest care’ for him’" (Augustinus, Contra 2 Epistl. Pelag. L.2.c.9; quoted by James Nichols in his translation of Arminius; Arminius, “Works,” II:196).
As Arminius states above, the only way the believer can persevere in well-doing is because of the grace of God: “even the perseverance in good, [is] not from ourselves, but from God through the Holy Spirit.” And notice that Arminius also used Augustine’s words regarding “subsequent or following Grace.” This type of grace is what most believers know today as “persevering grace.”
At the same time, however, the grace of God in the life of the believer does not nullify his or her responsibility to persevere. This is why John testifies above in 1 John 5:18 that the “one born of God” preserves or keeps himself from sin.
Arminius had this to say about the actions of the new believer:
“For when a new light and knowledge of God and Christ, and of the Divine Will, have been kindled in his mind; and when new affections, inclinations and motions agreeing with the law of God, have been excited in his heart, and new powers have been produced in him; it comes to pass,---that, being liberated from the kingdom of darkness, and being now made ‘light in the Lord,’ (Ephes. v, 8,) he understands the true and saving Good;---that, after the hardness of his stony heart has been changed into the softness of flesh, and the law of God according to the covenant of grace has been inscribed on it, (Jer. xxxi, 32---35,) he loves and embraces that which is good, just, and holy;---and that, being made capable in Christ, co-operating now with God he prosecutes the Good which he knows and loves, and he begins himself to perform it in deed” (James Arminius, “Works,” II: 194-195).
How do we reconcile such Scriptures that promote the preservation of God with the perseverance of the believer? One such good text that seems to place these two in harmony is Hebrews 13, where the writer gives a benediction of blessing to the persecuted Jews who are scattered all over the world:
“Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus---the great Shepherd of the sheep---with the blood of the everlasting covenant, EQUIP YOU WITH ALL THAT IS GOOD TO DO HIS WILL, working in you what is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21, HCSB).
Why is God equipping believers with good things? So that they can “do His will,” perform that which is pleasing in His sight. Divine sovereignty is clearly demonstrated here: God supplies the good. Without God supplying the good, there is no way that you or I could do ANYTHING good in the Christian life. Without God giving us the power to work the good, we would work only evil instead. But God supplies the good not because He will do all the work for us; no---instead, He requires that “we” follow and obey His commands. Since we have been given “the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21), we now have all that we need to live the Spirit-filled life.
So God equips us to work the good. But what happens in moments of temptation or weakness?
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
The Lord provides a way of escape, a way out of temptation, so that we can endure it. God’s faithfulness is demonstrated in that He provides persevering power; my faithfulness is to be demonstrated by enduring the temptation, grabbing ahold of God’s persevering power and choosing to resist the flesh.
As I mentioned above, Calvinists often refer to “the preservation of the saints,” and consider preservation to mean what the Bible calls “perseverance.” However, this is not what the Bible teaches; rather, God provides the power to endure temptation so that I can choose to endure it. I am enabled by God to endure it, but I can resist God’s power and choose to give in. Divine preservation does not cancel out human perseverance, for, if it does, then there is no human responsibility. Still, though, Scripture tells the believer that “you need endurance” (Heb. 10:36); and if the Bible is the ultimate authority in my life, I must believe that I must endure.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
A Word on Conditional Perseverance: Bberchin and the Five Points of Arminianism
I was up this morning watching a Youtube video by someone bearing the username “bberchin,” titled “The Five Points of Arminianism”(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9q0-mPxrm0&feature=related). He attempted to refute the five points of Arminianism based upon scriptural support from the work called “The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented,” by authors David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn. I have cited this same book here quite a few times at the site and will continue to do so in the future.
While exploring the five points of Arminianism, the point that most intrigued me about his presentation was point five, that of conditional perseverance. The fifth Arminian tenet states that not all believers endure to the end and be saved; therefore, only those who have faith and perseverance until the end of mortal life are those who will receive eternal life. “Bberchin” attempted to refute this fifth Arminian tenet through his use of Matthew 18:12-14.
Let’s read these verses:
“What do you think? If a man has 100 sheep, and one of them goes astray, won’t he leave the 99 on the hillside and go and search for the stray? And if he finds it, I assure you: He rejoices over that sheep more than over the 99 that did not go astray. In the same way, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish” (Matthew 18:12-14, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
First off, let’s place these verses in the context of Matthew 18. When Jesus refers to “these little ones,” exactly to whom is Jesus referring? In the context of chapter 18, Jesus is referring to children. He uses the phrase “these little ones” in verse 10; in verse 6 He refers to children as “these little ones who believe in Me”. In verse 2, Jesus “called a child to Him” and labels the child as “one of these little ones who believe in Me” in verse 6. What we see from this chapter is that Jesus is referring to children. In addition, we also see Jesus telling the disciples “unless you are converted and BECOME LIKE CHILDREN, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).
When we arrive at verse 11, Jesus tells us that “the Son of Man has come to save the lost.” “Bberchin,” however, does not pay attention to the context when He states that God finds the strayed believer. Unfortunately, the text itself does not say this; rather, what the text says is, “And IF he finds it,” not “When He finds it.” The Lord certainly pursues those who have strayed from the fold; but does the Lord “drag” such believers back to the faith? Evidently not---otherwise, why would 1 Timothy 4:1, as given by the Holy Spirit, tell us that some would “depart” from the faith? We never read of those specifically pointed out in 1 Timothy 4:1 ever coming back to the faith.
And regarding the meaning of these verses (Matt. 18:12-14), “Bberchin” had this to say:
“These verses have been taken out of context...especially by the Arminians. Many think it refers to God not wanting any person to go to Hell...but that is not what these verses are saying. What they are saying is that OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SAVED, THERE ARE GOING TO BE THOSE WHO GO ASTRAY. Some people call it a ‘lull in the faith,’ ‘a falling away’...BUT THE BELIEVER ALWAYS COMES BACK. GOD ALWAYS BRINGS THE BELIEVER BACK. And that’s what this verse is saying” (7:16-8:35).
The verse says nothing about the believer “always coming back” to the faith; rather, what it says is that whenever a believer strays, God will pursue that sheep. There is no verse in Scripture that says that believers will always return to the faith; rather, there are biblical examples against this very notion. Take for example, 2 Timothy 2:16-18---
“But avoid irreverent, empty speech, for this will produce an even greater measure of godlessness. And their word will spread like gangrene, among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus. They have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and are OVERTURNING THE FAITH OF SOME” (2 Timothy 2:16-18, HCSB).
The word for “overturn” here is “anatrepousin,” a compound of the words “ana” (over, again) and “trepo” (run, turn). Here we find that because false teachers are propagating the idea that the resurrection has already happened, many find that Christianity is no longer useful to them and throw away their faith in Christ. We don’t find any of these people returning to the faith. As I said above, we don’t find any of the deceived in 1 Timothy 4:1 returning to the faith, either. “Bberchin” has got to show proof that EVERY believer will come back if he intends to make his case...whereas I’ve got some good examples that refute his belief.
It is good that “Bberchin” attempted to deal with the five points of Arminianism; however, I’ve already argued the errors of Steele, Thomas, and Quinn regarding Arminianism; and I will be bold enough to say that Bberchin stands in error on this as well. I pray for the day when Calvinists and Molinists will come to see that the Arminian notion of perseverance is more than just a philosophical notion---but a biblical concept.
While exploring the five points of Arminianism, the point that most intrigued me about his presentation was point five, that of conditional perseverance. The fifth Arminian tenet states that not all believers endure to the end and be saved; therefore, only those who have faith and perseverance until the end of mortal life are those who will receive eternal life. “Bberchin” attempted to refute this fifth Arminian tenet through his use of Matthew 18:12-14.
Let’s read these verses:
“What do you think? If a man has 100 sheep, and one of them goes astray, won’t he leave the 99 on the hillside and go and search for the stray? And if he finds it, I assure you: He rejoices over that sheep more than over the 99 that did not go astray. In the same way, it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones perish” (Matthew 18:12-14, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
First off, let’s place these verses in the context of Matthew 18. When Jesus refers to “these little ones,” exactly to whom is Jesus referring? In the context of chapter 18, Jesus is referring to children. He uses the phrase “these little ones” in verse 10; in verse 6 He refers to children as “these little ones who believe in Me”. In verse 2, Jesus “called a child to Him” and labels the child as “one of these little ones who believe in Me” in verse 6. What we see from this chapter is that Jesus is referring to children. In addition, we also see Jesus telling the disciples “unless you are converted and BECOME LIKE CHILDREN, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).
When we arrive at verse 11, Jesus tells us that “the Son of Man has come to save the lost.” “Bberchin,” however, does not pay attention to the context when He states that God finds the strayed believer. Unfortunately, the text itself does not say this; rather, what the text says is, “And IF he finds it,” not “When He finds it.” The Lord certainly pursues those who have strayed from the fold; but does the Lord “drag” such believers back to the faith? Evidently not---otherwise, why would 1 Timothy 4:1, as given by the Holy Spirit, tell us that some would “depart” from the faith? We never read of those specifically pointed out in 1 Timothy 4:1 ever coming back to the faith.
And regarding the meaning of these verses (Matt. 18:12-14), “Bberchin” had this to say:
“These verses have been taken out of context...especially by the Arminians. Many think it refers to God not wanting any person to go to Hell...but that is not what these verses are saying. What they are saying is that OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN SAVED, THERE ARE GOING TO BE THOSE WHO GO ASTRAY. Some people call it a ‘lull in the faith,’ ‘a falling away’...BUT THE BELIEVER ALWAYS COMES BACK. GOD ALWAYS BRINGS THE BELIEVER BACK. And that’s what this verse is saying” (7:16-8:35).
The verse says nothing about the believer “always coming back” to the faith; rather, what it says is that whenever a believer strays, God will pursue that sheep. There is no verse in Scripture that says that believers will always return to the faith; rather, there are biblical examples against this very notion. Take for example, 2 Timothy 2:16-18---
“But avoid irreverent, empty speech, for this will produce an even greater measure of godlessness. And their word will spread like gangrene, among whom are Hymenaeus and Philetus. They have deviated from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and are OVERTURNING THE FAITH OF SOME” (2 Timothy 2:16-18, HCSB).
The word for “overturn” here is “anatrepousin,” a compound of the words “ana” (over, again) and “trepo” (run, turn). Here we find that because false teachers are propagating the idea that the resurrection has already happened, many find that Christianity is no longer useful to them and throw away their faith in Christ. We don’t find any of these people returning to the faith. As I said above, we don’t find any of the deceived in 1 Timothy 4:1 returning to the faith, either. “Bberchin” has got to show proof that EVERY believer will come back if he intends to make his case...whereas I’ve got some good examples that refute his belief.
It is good that “Bberchin” attempted to deal with the five points of Arminianism; however, I’ve already argued the errors of Steele, Thomas, and Quinn regarding Arminianism; and I will be bold enough to say that Bberchin stands in error on this as well. I pray for the day when Calvinists and Molinists will come to see that the Arminian notion of perseverance is more than just a philosophical notion---but a biblical concept.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Two Simple Words
Last night, I revisited an old “eternal security debate” online at youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLz0U9wqs-4) that I watched some months ago. It is good to study the eternal security debate; but sometimes, it’s even better to see others debate the issue. This allows the viewers to listen in and critique what each side does, give strategy for what one side could have used against the other, etc. I think that these debates prepare us to face those in our sphere of life who will challenge us on this and other theological issues.
In any case, the two men, both preachers, were named Jake (Baptist preacher) and Andrew Richardson (Church of Christ). Jake defended eternal security, while Andrew defended conditional security. The debate is an eleven-part debate, so I recommend that you set aside at least three hours of time to watch each part at Youtube and talk about it with those around you who are just as interested in the debate as you are.
One of the texts used by Jake to defend his view is Mark 10:28-30---
“Peter began to tell Him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed You.’ ‘I assure you,’ Jesus said, ‘there is no one who has left house, brothers or sisters, mother or father, children, or fields because of Me and the gospel, who will not receive 100 times more, now at this time---houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions---and eternal life in the age to come” (Mark 10:28-30, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
Jake insisted that this text “guaranteed” those it mentions eternal life, since “this is the promise of the Lord Jesus,” Jake seemed to say incessantly. Jake’s interpretation of the above verses was that, if someone has given up houses, people, possessions, etc. for Christ, then they will receive eternal life. He said, “If you’ve given these things up, then you’re in, according to the words of Jesus.”
But Jake forgot two simple words: “with persecutions”! Those who give up everything to follow Christ receive blessings from the Lord; but those blessings do not come without persecution...rather, the blessings are often mixed with persecutions such that the blessings could be seen somedays as persecution and the persecution could be seen on other days as actual blessings!!
The words “with persecutions” implies that there is more to an abundant life than just gaining possessions or people. The Lord desires that we experience abundant life in Him while on earth, but this does not come without trials and tribulations. And yet, all Jake could do was take these verses and interpret them as saying that “if” a person gave up these things at some point in their lives, then they would be guaranteed eternal life.
Andrew seemed to entertain Jake’s hermeneutical madness, instead of pointing out these two words that would aid his own defense. Since Mark 4 discusses the Parable of the Sower and the seeds and soils, this would have served as a great time to say, “See what the person receives with a life in Christ? Not only are they blessed by God, but they are equipped to suffer for His name sake.” Even suffering is a privilege given by God, and it is given to all who name the name of Christ (Philippians 1:21).
I think the debate is a great one to watch. I encourage all of you to check out the site provided above...and enjoy!
Monday, August 2, 2010
When The Text Says Otherwise
A friend of mine is in town to visit me for the next month as well as attend a wedding of another friend of ours. This morning, we stayed up until after 7am laughing our heads off at one another. Let’s just say that we’re catching up on all the fun moments we’ve missed in the past year (can you believe she abandoned me for a year? LOL).
In any case, today was a good day to get up and listen to some preaching done on a church podcast. The sermon my friend and I listened to today was the first sermon done in a new series on Parables. The text? Matthew 13:1-23. Let’s examine that text now:
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
18 “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. 23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23, New King James Version)
The sermon was on the four different soils, but I was dying to hear what the preacher had to say about the seed sown on the stony soil (“stony places”).
When the sermon arrived at verse 20, things got interesting. The preacher actually stated before the congregation that this passage referred to a believer, a Christian! In fact, he used this verse to exhort the congregation about the fact that “all who are in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution,” a reference to 2 Timothy 3:12. 2 Timothy 3:12 aptly supports the view that the seed on the stony places refers to a Christian (“when tribulation or persecution arises BECAUSE OF THE WORD,” v.21).
What we find in this text is that a Christian can fall away because of suffering or persecution. And “the word” in the text is “the word of the kingdom” (v.19), which is “the word of God.”
What the text tells us then, is that a believer can fall away from the faith. The question then becomes, “Why then, do we argue for eternal security?” Why is it that we come to passages in John that state that “no man can pluck them out of My hand” or passages like Romans 8 that state “nothing shall separate you from the love of God” and conclude that a believer cannot fall away from the faith?
The truth of the matter is, Matthew 13 must be considered equally on par with the other passages of Scripture that seem to argue that a believer cannot fall away. Scripture cannot (with qualification) argue for BOTH unconditional AND conditional security. The question becomes, “How can we interpret both texts such that they work together and not contradict each other?” In other words, a person can have “eternal security” if they “eternally believe” and “eternally endure” (or as Jesus says, “endure to the end,” Matt. 10, 24). In the words of Isaiah from the Lord, “The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance FOREVER” (Isaiah 32:17, NKJV). However, the basis for security in Christ is faith (Rom. 11:20ff), and if faith is thrown off (as in the case of the seed on rocky soil), then that person can have no assurance of their salvation. “Do not cast away your confidence which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:35-36, NKJV).
The preacher exposited the text correctly, and for that, I am thankful. But did he even think about how it directly relates to the Calvinistic Doctrine of Eternal Security? He may have or may not have. Still, though, the passage of the seed possessing temporary faith must be explained in the Calvinist context; and the logical conclusion arrived at in this system must be, as John Calvin affirmed, “God gives faith, and God takes it away”...and I’m not so sure that most self-proclaimed Calvinists are willing to go that far.
Surprisingly, he said that the Word is the ultimate authority source...and that, if he is wrong, then his congregation should follow the Word (according to him, it wouldn’t offend). When it comes to the Word, either Matthew 13 (as well as Mark 4 and Luke 8) regarding the Parable of the Sower is right...or wrong. If it’s true, then I think the preacher’s word on this text is correct. Nevertheless, it does contradict his view of the Doctrine of Perseverance/Eternal Security. And, do we not always say that “the Bible does not contradict”?
In any case, today was a good day to get up and listen to some preaching done on a church podcast. The sermon my friend and I listened to today was the first sermon done in a new series on Parables. The text? Matthew 13:1-23. Let’s examine that text now:
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
18 “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. 23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23, New King James Version)
The sermon was on the four different soils, but I was dying to hear what the preacher had to say about the seed sown on the stony soil (“stony places”).
When the sermon arrived at verse 20, things got interesting. The preacher actually stated before the congregation that this passage referred to a believer, a Christian! In fact, he used this verse to exhort the congregation about the fact that “all who are in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution,” a reference to 2 Timothy 3:12. 2 Timothy 3:12 aptly supports the view that the seed on the stony places refers to a Christian (“when tribulation or persecution arises BECAUSE OF THE WORD,” v.21).
What we find in this text is that a Christian can fall away because of suffering or persecution. And “the word” in the text is “the word of the kingdom” (v.19), which is “the word of God.”
What the text tells us then, is that a believer can fall away from the faith. The question then becomes, “Why then, do we argue for eternal security?” Why is it that we come to passages in John that state that “no man can pluck them out of My hand” or passages like Romans 8 that state “nothing shall separate you from the love of God” and conclude that a believer cannot fall away from the faith?
The truth of the matter is, Matthew 13 must be considered equally on par with the other passages of Scripture that seem to argue that a believer cannot fall away. Scripture cannot (with qualification) argue for BOTH unconditional AND conditional security. The question becomes, “How can we interpret both texts such that they work together and not contradict each other?” In other words, a person can have “eternal security” if they “eternally believe” and “eternally endure” (or as Jesus says, “endure to the end,” Matt. 10, 24). In the words of Isaiah from the Lord, “The work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance FOREVER” (Isaiah 32:17, NKJV). However, the basis for security in Christ is faith (Rom. 11:20ff), and if faith is thrown off (as in the case of the seed on rocky soil), then that person can have no assurance of their salvation. “Do not cast away your confidence which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:35-36, NKJV).
The preacher exposited the text correctly, and for that, I am thankful. But did he even think about how it directly relates to the Calvinistic Doctrine of Eternal Security? He may have or may not have. Still, though, the passage of the seed possessing temporary faith must be explained in the Calvinist context; and the logical conclusion arrived at in this system must be, as John Calvin affirmed, “God gives faith, and God takes it away”...and I’m not so sure that most self-proclaimed Calvinists are willing to go that far.
Surprisingly, he said that the Word is the ultimate authority source...and that, if he is wrong, then his congregation should follow the Word (according to him, it wouldn’t offend). When it comes to the Word, either Matthew 13 (as well as Mark 4 and Luke 8) regarding the Parable of the Sower is right...or wrong. If it’s true, then I think the preacher’s word on this text is correct. Nevertheless, it does contradict his view of the Doctrine of Perseverance/Eternal Security. And, do we not always say that “the Bible does not contradict”?
Friday, July 30, 2010
An Addendum to Calvary
“There is no contradiction here, ‘as if God should will the damnation and salvation of Judas both at one time,’ for Preston is adamant that ‘it is most possible for a man to will and nill one and the same thing upon the same object if it be in different respects’” [Jonathan D. Moore, “English Hypothetical Universalism: John Preston and the Softening of Reformed Theology.” Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans, 2007, page 133; John Preston, “Riches of Mercy,” page 422. A Note from Jonathan Moore: “Preston has implicitly adopted Harsnett’s interpretation (Arminian) of 1 Timothy 2:4 over against that of Perkins (particularist, Calvinist].
I do not like contradictions. The word “contradiction” itself comes from two words, “contra” (against) and “diction” (speaking). To “contradict” something is to “speak against” it, whatever the thing may be. For example, to say that “I DO like chocolate” and then turn around and say “I DO NOT like chocolate” is to speak against the previous statement, “I do like chocolate.”
Contradictions, then, are illogical; and the only thing that can resolve paradoxes (or contradictions) is to qualify the opposites. For example, let’s look at the example from above:
“I do like chocolate”
AND
“I do not like chocolate”
How do we resolve the contradiction here? We qualify the terms:
“I do like chocolate IN THE SUMMERTIME”
And
“I do not like chocolate IN THE WINTER”
The resolution is not the best one, but it is a good idea of how to resolve the contradiction (by stating seasons in which chocolate is favorable and seasons in which chocolate is not favorable).
Taking this concept into John Preston’s theology, we can see that he is right when he says that “it is most possible for a man to will and nill ONE AND THE SAME THING upon the same object IF IT BE IN DIFFERENT RESPECTS.” What Preston is saying here is, “Qualify the contradictory phrases”!
Preston then provides an example for us:
“A father will not have his son drunk, if he tie him up in a chamber he will not be drunk, yet he will not take such a course, though he hath a will his son should not be drunk, so God though HE DO WILL THAT MEN SHOULD BELIEVE AND REPENT AND BE SAVED, yet HE WILL NOT BE SAID TO USE ALL MEANS FOR THE EFFECTING OF IT IN ALL MEN, because He will glorify his justice as well as his mercy” (Moore, 133; Preston, “Riches of Mercy,” page 422).
There are problems with Preston’s statement here. First, the example never tells us why the father does not lock the son up in a chamber to prevent his drunkenness. Preston gives us no reason why; but when it gets to God not saving everyone, Preston provides an answer: “He will glorify his justice as well as his mercy.”
Next, in his statement on God, we see that, although God is responsible for making men and women come to faith, He will not effectually draw all to faith. And why?
“Because he will glorify his justice as well as mercy.”
In short, God has a “greater good” to which He has committed Himself, apart from the salvation of the world: that is, to display His justice.
But if God “must” display His justice with the damnation of many lives only God could have saved, then what about Calvary? Wasn’t the Atonement the ULTIMATE display of God’s justice and mercy? Didn’t God fully pour out His wrath on Christ on the Cross?
What does John tell us about Christ’s atonement?
“For God DID NOT SEND HIS SON INTO THE WORLD THAT HE MIGHT CONDEMN THE WORLD, but that THE WORLD MIGHT BE SAVED THROUGH HIM” (John 3:17, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
So God sent the Son into the world with the intention of saving every creature. John is clear when he says that the purpose for Christ’s coming was not “that He might condemn the world.” God had no purpose of condemning anyone in Christ; therefore, the reason why anyone is condemned is because they do not believe in Christ (John 3:18).
And what about Paul’s words in Romans, which state that because of Christ’s righteousness “there is life-giving justification FOR EVERYONE” (Rom. 5:18, HCSB)? Or Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians that the message of reconciliation states that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, NOT COUNTING THEIR TRESPASSES AGAINST THEM” (2 Cor. 5:17)? If God sent Christ so that He could forgive the world of its trespasses, then doesn’t this mean that God has provided a way for every single soul to be saved, should he or she believe on Christ’s name?
The Scriptures portray a different God than does John Preston’s theology; rather, Preston’s theology doesn’t accurately portray the God of the Bible. If God has provided a way for the world to be saved, and His desire in sending Christ was to purchase the salvation of every single person, then how could God turn around and decide not to save every person? The problem with Preston’s theology is that he refuses to give up his Calvinism, with its doctrines of irresistible grace and unconditional election. As a result, he now has to come up with an answer for why the atonement “was not enough” to save the world---why, instead, the world now needs to see the damnation of souls to comfort the elect in their salvation. But doesn’t this provide “an addendum to Calvary?”
I shudder to think that the work of Christ on the cross was not enough to save every single person in the world. The Lord makes it very clear in His Word that He never created hell for any human, but the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). If this is true, then God has never outright intended to damn anyone apart from their rejection of Christ’s atonement and saving grace. God didn’t do a half-job at the Cross; rather, He completely purchased the redemption of the world. He has already judged the world for its sin in Adam; now, He need only judge the world for its rejection of the purchased salvation in Christ.
I do not like contradictions. The word “contradiction” itself comes from two words, “contra” (against) and “diction” (speaking). To “contradict” something is to “speak against” it, whatever the thing may be. For example, to say that “I DO like chocolate” and then turn around and say “I DO NOT like chocolate” is to speak against the previous statement, “I do like chocolate.”
Contradictions, then, are illogical; and the only thing that can resolve paradoxes (or contradictions) is to qualify the opposites. For example, let’s look at the example from above:
“I do like chocolate”
AND
“I do not like chocolate”
How do we resolve the contradiction here? We qualify the terms:
“I do like chocolate IN THE SUMMERTIME”
And
“I do not like chocolate IN THE WINTER”
The resolution is not the best one, but it is a good idea of how to resolve the contradiction (by stating seasons in which chocolate is favorable and seasons in which chocolate is not favorable).
Taking this concept into John Preston’s theology, we can see that he is right when he says that “it is most possible for a man to will and nill ONE AND THE SAME THING upon the same object IF IT BE IN DIFFERENT RESPECTS.” What Preston is saying here is, “Qualify the contradictory phrases”!
Preston then provides an example for us:
“A father will not have his son drunk, if he tie him up in a chamber he will not be drunk, yet he will not take such a course, though he hath a will his son should not be drunk, so God though HE DO WILL THAT MEN SHOULD BELIEVE AND REPENT AND BE SAVED, yet HE WILL NOT BE SAID TO USE ALL MEANS FOR THE EFFECTING OF IT IN ALL MEN, because He will glorify his justice as well as his mercy” (Moore, 133; Preston, “Riches of Mercy,” page 422).
There are problems with Preston’s statement here. First, the example never tells us why the father does not lock the son up in a chamber to prevent his drunkenness. Preston gives us no reason why; but when it gets to God not saving everyone, Preston provides an answer: “He will glorify his justice as well as his mercy.”
Next, in his statement on God, we see that, although God is responsible for making men and women come to faith, He will not effectually draw all to faith. And why?
“Because he will glorify his justice as well as mercy.”
In short, God has a “greater good” to which He has committed Himself, apart from the salvation of the world: that is, to display His justice.
But if God “must” display His justice with the damnation of many lives only God could have saved, then what about Calvary? Wasn’t the Atonement the ULTIMATE display of God’s justice and mercy? Didn’t God fully pour out His wrath on Christ on the Cross?
What does John tell us about Christ’s atonement?
“For God DID NOT SEND HIS SON INTO THE WORLD THAT HE MIGHT CONDEMN THE WORLD, but that THE WORLD MIGHT BE SAVED THROUGH HIM” (John 3:17, Holman Christian Standard Bible).
So God sent the Son into the world with the intention of saving every creature. John is clear when he says that the purpose for Christ’s coming was not “that He might condemn the world.” God had no purpose of condemning anyone in Christ; therefore, the reason why anyone is condemned is because they do not believe in Christ (John 3:18).
And what about Paul’s words in Romans, which state that because of Christ’s righteousness “there is life-giving justification FOR EVERYONE” (Rom. 5:18, HCSB)? Or Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians that the message of reconciliation states that “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, NOT COUNTING THEIR TRESPASSES AGAINST THEM” (2 Cor. 5:17)? If God sent Christ so that He could forgive the world of its trespasses, then doesn’t this mean that God has provided a way for every single soul to be saved, should he or she believe on Christ’s name?
The Scriptures portray a different God than does John Preston’s theology; rather, Preston’s theology doesn’t accurately portray the God of the Bible. If God has provided a way for the world to be saved, and His desire in sending Christ was to purchase the salvation of every single person, then how could God turn around and decide not to save every person? The problem with Preston’s theology is that he refuses to give up his Calvinism, with its doctrines of irresistible grace and unconditional election. As a result, he now has to come up with an answer for why the atonement “was not enough” to save the world---why, instead, the world now needs to see the damnation of souls to comfort the elect in their salvation. But doesn’t this provide “an addendum to Calvary?”
I shudder to think that the work of Christ on the cross was not enough to save every single person in the world. The Lord makes it very clear in His Word that He never created hell for any human, but the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). If this is true, then God has never outright intended to damn anyone apart from their rejection of Christ’s atonement and saving grace. God didn’t do a half-job at the Cross; rather, He completely purchased the redemption of the world. He has already judged the world for its sin in Adam; now, He need only judge the world for its rejection of the purchased salvation in Christ.
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