Category Archives: Calvinism

Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?

By Spencer D Gear

Does God deterministically, fatalistically harden any people so that they are unable to respond to God? This has become a very controversial topic in Calvinistic-Arminian discussions, as will be evident as this article unfolds.

It is expected that:

A Calvinist would favour God deterministically causing the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart: ‘while it is said, for instance, that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, it is also said that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15; 8:32; 9:34). One description is given from the divine viewpoint, the other is given from the human viewpoint. God is ultimately responsible for the hardening of the heart in that He permits it to occur, and the inspired writer in graphic language simply says that God does it; but never are we to understand that God is the immediate and efficient cause’ (Loraine Boettner, Unconditional election, Reprobation).

An Arminian to agree to God and Pharaoh working together on the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. An example is:

‘The same is true of God in his dealings with Pharaoh. God did not change Pharaoh’s heart to make him want to kill the Hebrews. Pharaoh already wanted to kill them. What God did was give Pharaoh the courage to follow through with what he already desired to do. Pharaoh was an evil man, but he was also timid and fearful of the Hebrews and their God. God simply gave Pharaoh the tenacity to follow through with the desires of his evil heart (Wesleyan Arminian, March 9, 2011).

What happened to Pharaoh? Who was it that hardened Pharaoh’s heart? We have two contrasting sets of verses that we will examine in this table:

Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart?

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened

Pharaoh hardened his own heart

Exodus 4:21, ‘And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go”’ (ESV).[1]Ex 7:3, ‘But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt’.

Ex 9:12, ‘But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses’.

Ex 10:1, ‘Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may show these signs of mine among them’.

Ex 10:20, ‘But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go’.

Ex 10:27, ‘But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go’.

Ex 11:10, ‘Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land’.

Ex 14:4, ‘And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so’.

Ex 14:8, ‘And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel while the people of Israel were going out defiantly’.

Exodus 7:13-14, ‘Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go’.Ex 7:22, ‘But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said’.

Ex 9:7, ‘And Pharaoh sent, and behold, not one of the livestock of Israel was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people go’.

Exodus 8:15, ‘But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said’.Ex 8:32, ‘But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go’.

Ex 9:34-35, ‘But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants. 35 So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he did not let the people of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses’.

1 Samuel 6:6, ‘Why should you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? After he had dealt severely with them, did they not send the people away, and they departed?’

Romans 9:17-18, ‘For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills’.

Do we have contradictory messages here?

The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.

Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

Let’s check out these charges.

A. Determinism or choice?

This is how it played out on a large Christian forum to which I have contributed since 2005. A Lutheran wrote:

Been going around with Calvinist(s) for almost 3 decades regarding Rom.9:21. They assert the sovereignty which from the same fallen lump of humanity decreed and shaped some to salvation and decreed and shaped some to damnation where I assert such a sovereignty which is contrary to God’s very nature as agape does not exist.[2]

I replied, ‘Have you had any discussions with them of the Hebrew thinking on the potter and the clay in Rom 9:21 and the parable of the potter and clay in Jeremiah 18?’[3] The Lutheran responded:

Our Lord had an uncomfortable discussion with me, ie, I didn’t construe Rom.9:21 with Jer.18. Good job! The unlimited power of God over mankind is exercised according to man’s conduct, not according to a decretum absolutum or unchangeable determination.

Most of my discussions have been with modern Lutherans, ie, against their post-1930 unionized modernization; however God impacted one Calvinist, not so recent, with the true interpretation of agape a little over 5 years ago and he’s available of course, ie, haven’t done too well with our Christian brothers Calvinist.[4]

My comeback was:[5]

You have taken some of your language from Keil & Delitzsch’s commentary on Jeremiah 18:6-10:

In Jer 18:6-10 the Lord discloses to the prophet the truth lying in the potter’s treatment of the clay. The power the potter has over the clay to remould, according to his pleasure, the vessel he had formed from it if it went wrong; the same power God possesses over the people of Israel. This unlimited power of God over mankind is exercised according to man’s conduct, not according to a decretum absolutum or unchangeable determination. If he pronounces a people’s overthrow or ruin, and if that people turn from its wickedness, He repeals His decree (Jer 18:7.); and conversely, if He promises a people welfare and prosperity, and if that people turn away from Him to wickedness, then too He changes His resolve to do good to it (Jer 18:9.) [in my hard copy edition it is Keil n d:295, emphasis added]

So are you saying that you have had some success in presenting this view of the potter and the clay with Lutherans? It is interesting that you have not had a similar response with brother Calvinists. Any idea why?

B. Potter and clay connection

I find the Jewish thinking of the potter and the clay between Rom 9:21 and Jeremiah 18 to be significantly strong and helped me in my hermeneutics of Romans 9.

I was originally alerted to this potter and clay connection between Rom 9:21 and Jeremiah 18 by Norman Geisler in his comments on Rom 9:21. He wrote:

The image this conjures up in a Western mind is often a deterministic, if not fatalistic, one where they have no choice but are overpowered by God…. However, a Hebrew mind would not think this way, knowing the parable of the potter from Jeremiah 18. For in this context the basic lump of clay will either be built up or torn down by God, depending on Israel’s moral response to God. For the prophet says emphatically, ‘If that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned’ (18:8). Thus, the unrepentant element of Israel becomes a ‘vessel for dishonour’ and the repentant group a ‘vessel for honour’ (Geisler 1999:90, emphasis in original).

The Luther’s response was that he did borrow his statement from Keil and Delitzsch’s commentary. Then he stated,

A Calvinist prior to the last one was a young 30 year old, I’m well over 70, and he was in profound shock when I put forward just a simple old outdated Lutheran definition of agape: The object intelligently understood with a higher divine intelligent purpose where both Calvinist and modern Lutherans reject of course. A few days latter he contacted me saying he couldn’t find fault thus opened up Rom.8 & 9 where he become ‘floored’ having to sit down. My point over a simple interpretation,, ie a paradigm shift would send them to an early grave.[6]

(Courtesy: vector-images)

C. Jewish understanding of the potter and the clay

As a result of this link that I understand between the meaning of God and nation as the potter and the clay in Jeremiah 18 – and its application to Romans 9:21 – I was engaged in various interactions with Calvinists on this forum. They did not want to accept that the potter and the clay in the Jewish worldview did not mean that God the determinist was in action with no thought of human responsibility by way of response. The following are some gleanings from what I wrote:[7]

The God who can absolutely choose the nations of Jacob (Israelites) over Esau, who could absolutely choose the incarnation and passion-resurrection, is absolutely able to affirm that ‘if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it’ (Jer 18:8 ESV)

This God can absolutely choose to grant salvation to these: ‘If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved’ (Rom 10:9 ESV). He is utterly able to involve human beings in the choice.

The simple point I was raising in comparing Rom 9:21 with Jeremiah 18 was to show how a Jew (Paul) would understand the potter and the moulding of the clay analogy. God moulding the clay would not take place without the nation (the clay) also being involved. See Jeremiah 18:8, ‘and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it’ (ESV). If the nation turns from evil (human responsibility), God would relent and not send the disaster that He intended.

There is no autocratic determinism in God’s actions in the Jewish thinking re potter and clay. Paul was a Jew and was coming from this framework of the potter and the clay of Jeremiah 18.[8]

You are still missing my point. Perhaps I’m not communicating with clarity.

Paul, as a Jew, would not be using the potter and clay example without his the Jewish (God’s) understanding of the clay’s responsibility (as in Jeremiah 18) in the hands of the potter.

God did not let Israel off the hook as the potter. If the clay (Israel) responded, God would relent from his threatened disaster. He was not a deterministic God in action according to Jeremiah 18.

Therefore, Romans 9 is written from within the Jewish framework/worldview that Paul endorsed. No matter who the audience was, the potter and clay analogy was not written as a deterministic potter with the clay not responding to arrive at the final result. That’s how it was for the Jewish worldview.

What you seem to be promoting here (and many Calvinists that I interact with try to do it) is a Western world imposition of determinism of God’s actions in Romans 9.

The Jews do not see the potter and the clay that way, as Jeremiah 18 demonstrates. It matters not whether Paul is addressing individuals or nations. The Jewish worldview was that God and human responsibility (whether national or individual) go together. In my understanding, it’s our Western world that wants to see determinism here.[9]

I do pay attention to the details when I read Scripture and that applies to the Hebrews’ worldview of the potter and the clay. There was no deterministic God in action (that seems to be Western thinking), but the God who requires human responsibility, whether that be nation or individual.

Your presuppositions seem to be clouding your understanding of God, the potter, and the nation or individual as the clay. God is not the determinist in the Jewish understanding of the potter and the clay.[10]

This is a red herring.

You want me to go on your tangent when you don’t seem to want to understand the Israelite worldview and God’s understanding that he gave them of the potter and the clay throughout the OT and especially in Jeremiah 18.

God hardened Pharaoh’s heart at the same time as Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

To further understand God, the potter, and the nation/human being as the clay from a Jewish worldview (which was the apostle Paul’s background) – the sovereignty of God and the human responsibility of human beings – see the article, ‘Who Hardened Pharaoh’s Heart?‘ by Dave Miller & Kyle Butt.[11]

No matter how much I go over and over this in stating the Jewish (and Paul’s Jewish) worldview on the potter and the clay, exemplified in Jeremiah 18, you don’t seem to want to understand what I’m saying about what that means for Romans 9:21 and the Jewish view of the potter and clay.

The image you seem to be wanting me to see is something coming out of the Western mindset of God, the determinist, with your language, ‘he can make anything he wants’.

That is not how the Hebrews understood the potter and the clay analogy from Jeremiah 18 and this applied to how Paul used the analogy in Rom 9:21.

In the Jeremiah 18 example, the nation of Israel would be built up or torn down, depending on its response to God. Jeremiah 18:8 makes this clear: ‘And if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it’ (ESV).

So, God the potter is not God the determinist with Israel. God’s will for the nation is determined by whether it turns from evil or not. If it – taking human responsibility – turns from evil, God will relent.

That’s God’s understanding of the potter and clay example and that’s how Paul understands it as a Jew who is writing. He would not see it as God the determinist. Human co-operation was part of the plan of God.

This has been God’s requirement since the beginning of time when he did not deterministically require man to sin. God commanded the man, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (Gen 2:16-17 ESV).

God did not command: ‘You have only one option – you must eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.

The potter and the clay analogy, from God’s perspective, is not a promotion of determinism. A human moral response is required.
You ask: ‘Do you see the difference between Paul’s analogy and Jeremiah’s analogy being two different times in the Potter’s creation process?’

No, I don’t. That’s because for the Jewish worldview from which Paul writes, God is not the determinist. God requires human response, whether that be national or personal.[12]

I observed: ‘God does not harden Pharaoh’s heart without Pharaoh hardening his own heart.’.[13] A reply was, ‘How about in Exodus 4:21? Had Pharaoh hardened his heart already?’[14]

I replied:[15]

That is but one example [Exodus 4:21] of a summary of the actions regarding Pharaoh’s hardening of his heart.
Justin Taylor has provided this summary of ‘the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart’:

Here is a quick run-down of the key biblical data:

Three times Yahweh declares that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 4:21; 7:3; 14:4).
Six times Yahweh actually hardens Pharaoh’s heart (Ex. 9:12; 10:1; 10:20; 10:27; 11:10; 14:8).
Seven times the hardening is expressed as a divine passive with Yahweh as the implied subject, i.e., Pharaoh’s heart “was hardened” by Yahweh (Ex. 7:13; 7:14; 7:22; 8:19; 9:7; 9:35; 14:5).
And three times we are told that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 8:15; 8:32; 9:34).

Most certainly let God be God. I agree wholeheartedly. But we need the elements of God’s revelation that he has supplied in the above verses and not one verse only that you supplied of Ex 4:21.

The Lutheran contributor provided this helpful insight:

Just to bring a little more clarity: Rom.9:18 via Mr. Chemnitz, Matthias Loy, and Keil summarized: Ten times Exodus reports that Pharaoh hardened himself; then, only in consequence of this self-hardening, we read ten times that God hardened this self-hardened man.

Then Mr. Loy wraps up with something like after five plagues Pharaoh hardened his heart progressively; then after the sixth God’s hardening set in (Exod.9:12). After the seventh it is again Pharaoh (Exod.9:35); then it is God who hardened, but now in complete tragedy (Exod.10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 5).

I agree with all the former, and personally accountable for any discripancies (sic) in Exod., ie, my backyard.[16]

D. God and human beings collaborate in causation

You do not seem to understand how the Jewish worldview understood the potter and clay analogy. God was not the determinist who acted without human response and responsibility. God’s method started in the Garden of Genesis 2 and it will not change throughout human history.

That’s what the potter and clay analogy teaches, but a Western worldview wants to make it mean a deterministic God, but Jeremiah 18 makes it clear that that is not how Yahweh understands his actions in human history, whether on nations or individuals.[17]

A Calvinist wrote:

The NEB[18] reads thus,

8:15 He became obdurate
8:32 Once again Pharaoh became obdurate
9:34 So Pharaoh remained obstinate

***These do NOT necessarily infer that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.***
The NEB seems to be more in line with the English sub-text of the Online Hebrew Interlinear which does not indicate that Pharaoh acted upon himself. In fact, 9:34 in the Interlinear suggests that Pharaoh remained obstinate because YHWH was adding to his sin and making his heart hardened.

and he [YHWH] is adding to the sin of [Pharaoh] and he [YHWH] is making heavy heart-of-him [Pharaoh] Brackets mine.[19]

My reply[20] was that Keil & Delitzsch’s OT commentary, based on the Hebrew, does not agree with this New English Bible translation that he was promoting. Keil & Delitzsch state regarding Exodus 8:15,

‘Though Jehovah had thus manifested Himself as the Almighty God and Lord of the creation, Pharaoh did not keep his promise; but when he saw that there was breathing-time … relief from an overpowering pressure), literally, as soon as he “got air” he hardened his heart, so that he did not hearken to Moses and Aaron’ (Keil & Delitzsch n d:482).

Whether the language is ‘obdurate’ or ‘hardened’, the issue does not change. God did not make Pharaoh’s heart obdurate/hardened without the free choice of Pharaoh hardening his own heart. We know that ‘Pharaoh’s heart was hardened’ or ‘grew hard’ (Ex 7:13) the more that God pressured Pharaoh.

We know that the same sun that hardens clay also melts wax. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in a like manner. If Pharaoh had received God’s warnings and acted on them, his heart would not have been hardened.

Part of what Lutheran commentator, R C H Lenski, wrote about Romans 9:18 was:

‘Ten times Exodus reports that Pharaoh hardened himself; then, only in consequence of this self-hardening, we read ten times that God hardened this self-hardened man…. The door of mercy is not shut at once on the self-hardened so that they crash into the locked door with a bang. We might rush to close it thus. God’s mercy closes it gradually and is ready to open it wide again at the least show of repentance in answer to his mercy; and not until all the warnings of the gradually closing door are utterly in vain does the door sink regretfully into its lock.

In Exod. 4:21 the Lord tells Moses the final outcome: “I will harden his heart”; and “all those wonders” refers to all of them that Moses was to do before Pharaoh. After five plagues Pharaoh hardened his heart progressively: then after the sixth God’s hardening sets in (Exod. 9:12). After the seventh it is again Pharaoh (Exod. 9:35); then it is God who hardened but now in complete tragedy (Exod. 10:20, 27: 11:10; 14:4,5). The history of his hardening certainly speaks for itself. Pharaoh wanted none of the mercy for himself and for his own nation and with all his might intended to block the plans of that mercy with regard to Israel. The case of the Jews was even worse, for all the mercy was covenanted to be theirs, and they did not only refuse it and crucify the Christ but intended to prevent all other men from receiving this mercy (Matt. 23:13)’ (Lenski 1936:617).

[21]The prediction that God would harden Pharaoh’s heart was before the hardening happened (Ex 4:21).

Exodus 4 and 7 give some reasons why God would harden Pharaoh’s heart after Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

When you leave out Pharaoh’s responsibility in what he did to Israel and to God and in the hardening of his own heart, you leave out a valuable part of the biblical evidence and make God a determinist.

Since Genesis 2, we know that God gives human beings, starting with the first man, the ability to say yes or no to God. It started with God giving man the ability to affirm or reject the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This God-given ability is affirmed throughout the OT and the NT.

The unchanging God has not changed his view on the need of human beings to respond to or reject God. A classical OT example is in Joshua 24:15,

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (NIV, emphasis added)

From Genesis to Revelation, God has not changed his theology on the responsibility of human beings to respond to God’s commands before He announces the final decision.
If God were the determinist, it would have been determined in Genesis 2 and the first man would have had no choice. It wasn’t.

A person stated: ‘If this be the case, then please explain Ex 5:7-9 and Moses’ recognition of God as the causal agent in 5:22’.[22]

My response was:[23]

I find this to be such a basic question with a straight forward answer. The sovereign God of the universe causes many things to happen, but He does not do it without human involvement.

I write this on 22 November 2013, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of USA president, John F Kennedy. Was it God who deterministically caused it or was Lee Harvey Oswald involved in the cause?[24]

Did God deterministically cause the September 11 2001 disaster in the USA or were human beings involved in the cause?

Did God deterministically cause the slaughter of Australian, New Zealand and other soldiers on the Gallipoli Peninsular on 25 April 1915 in World War I, or were soldiers and others the cause of the slaughter?

Did God deterministically cause the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart or was Pharaoh involved in the cause of his own hardening? God works with human beings to bring about God’s ultimate decisions in the world. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but he did not do it without Pharaoh’s hardening his own heart and resisting God.

See the article, ‘An exegetical and theological consideration of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus 4-14 and Romans 9’ (G K Beale, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’ (Trinity Journal, 5NS, 1984, pp. 129-154) for further insight into this controversial topic.

Works consulted

Geisler, N 1999. Chosen but free. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.

Keil, C F n d. Commentary on the Old Testament: Jeremiah, Lamentations, in C F Keil & F Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol 8 (2 vols in 1). Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company. Jeremiah available online at: http://www.studylight.org/com/kdo/view.cgi?bk=23

Keil, C F & Delitzsch, E n d: Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, vol 1 (3 vols in 1). Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Lenski, R C H 1936. Commentary on the New Testament: The interpretation of St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers (limited edition, based on 1936 Lutheran Book Concern; assigned 1945 to The Wartburg Press, assigned 1961 to Augsburg Publishing House).

Notes

[1] Unless otherwise stated, all Bible quotations are from the English Standard Version of the Bible (ESV).

[2] Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘Romans 9’, shturt678 #341, 19 November 2013, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-35/ (Accessed 22 November 2013, emphasis in original).

[3] Ibid., OzSpen #343.

[4] Ibid., shturt678 #344.

[5] OzSpen #366, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-37/ (Accessed 22 November 2013).

[6] Ibid, shturt678 #367.

[7] This is beginning at ibid., OzSpen #369. There will be quite a bit of repeat in these responses as some Calvinists do not want to accept this view, so they raise all kinds of red herrings to try to distract me onto their way of thinking. I maintained my stance of God who is not the fatalistic, deterministic, autocrat who makes personal salvation decisions without the participation of human beings and their free will.

[8] Ibid., OzSpen #372.

[9] OzSpen #376, http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-38/.

[10] OzSpen #378, http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-38/

[11] Ibid., OzSpen #379.

[12] OzSpen #382, http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-39/.

[13] Ibid., OzSpen #383.

[14] Ibid., Charis kai dunamis #384.

[15] Ibid., OzSpen #386.

[16] Ibid., shturt678 #389, emphasis in original.

[17] Ibid., OzSpen #393, http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-40/ (Accessed 22 November 2013).

[18] NEB = New English Bible.

[19] The Boxer #391, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-40/.

[20] Ibid., OzSpen #398.

[21] Ibid., OzSpen #414, http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-42/#post64536294 (Accessed 22 November 2013).

[22] Ibid., Charis kai Dunamis #413.

[23] Ibid., OzSpen #416, http://www.christianforums.com/t7785192-42/#post64536294 (Accessed 22 November 2013).

[24] See Stephen Smith 2013. ‘Accused JFK assassin is arrested, then gunned down’ (CBS News, November 24, 2013, available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/jfk-assassination-suspect-lee-harvey-oswald-is-arrested-then-gunned-down/ – accessed 24 December 2013).

Is this verse forced into limited atonement theology?

(image courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

I’m speaking of 1 Corinthians 15:3: ‘For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures’ (ESV)

I find some Calvinists not to be upfront about their meaning when they make statements about Christ dying for sinners. A person asked online, ‘When Paul initially preached to them [the Corinthians] there would have been non-believers present. What would you say to such a crowd regarding “Christ”, “died” and “sins”?’[1]

A Calvinist who believes in limited atonement responded,

Christ died for sinners. You are a sinner. To receive forgiveness for your sins you must repent of your sins believe on The Lord Jesus Christ.

Later I could say that I preached that Christ died for our sins. And it would be true.[2]

Therefore, I asked, ‘In your first sentence, ‘Christ died for sinners’, are you affirming that Christ died for ALL sinners?’[3] He did not want to affirm his belief in limited atonement at this point, so he said, ‘Read it again’.[4] My response was, ‘That’s like a non-answer’ He has affirmed his belief in TULIP Calvinism constantly in his posts to Christian Forums, but he didn’t want to go down that route at this stage of the discussion.

A. The meaning of 1 Corinthians 15:3: Limited atonement or not?

That only believers are mentioned in 1 Cor 15:3, ‘Christ died for our sins’, is because of the grammar and semantics of writing a letter to anyone. When the Bible uses ‘our’, ‘us’, and ‘we’ regarding the atonement, it does this because this is the group of people that a writer (in this case, Paul) is addressing.

Such a verse as 1 Cor 15:3 is not addressing all of those for whom there has been provision of atonement; it is speaking to those for whom there has been an appropriation/application of the atonement in Corinth. Here in 1 Cor 15:3, Paul is addressing a few to whom the atonement has been applied, so he uses the language of ‘our sins’.

B. Provision and appropriation

This language of ‘provision’ and ‘appropriation or application’ is used by some theologians to differentiate between the number of people who are provided with opportunity for salvation (all of the people in the world) and those who accept Christ’s offer (appropriation or application of salvation). Geisler, who links his view to that of a ‘moderate Calvinist’ (Geisler 1999:52-54), uses it also (see below). He wrote that ‘while salvation was provided for all, it is applied only to those who believe’ and ‘since God also wanted everyone to believe, he also intended that Christ would die to provide salvation for all people’ (2004:187, emphasis in original). Geisler also uses ‘everyone is potentially justifiable, not actually justified’ (2004:352, emphasis in original). He also uses parallel language when he stated that ‘God’s grace is not merely sufficient for all; it is efficient for the elect. In order for God’s grace to be effective, there must be cooperation by the recipient on whom God has moved’ (Geisler 2004:144).

Thiessen, an Arminian in his views, uses the language of ‘appropriation’:

‘There is a necessary order in a man’s salvation; he must first believe that Christ died for him, before he can appropriate the benefits of His death to himself. Although Christ died for all in the sense of reconciling God to the world, not all are saved, because their actual salvation is conditioned on their being reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:18-20)’ (Thiessen 1949:330, emphasis in original).

Therefore, Thiessen offered this summary of how Christ can be the Saviour of the world and not offer salvation only to the elect:

His death secured for all men a delay in the execution of the sentence against sin, space for repentance, and the common blessings of life which have been forfeited by transgression; it removed from the mind of God every obstacle to the pardon of the penitent and restoration of the sinner, except his wilful opposition to God and rejection of him; it procured for the unbeliever the powerful incentives to repentance presented in the Cross, by means of the preaching of God’s servants, and through the work of the Holy Spirit; it provided salvation for those who die in infancy, and assured its application to them; and it makes possible the final restoration of creation itself (Thiessen 1949:330).

Others such as David Allen use the language of ‘the extent of the atonement’ and ‘the application of the atonement’ (Allen 2010:65, emphasis in original). Allen argues ‘the case for unlimited atonement (an unlimited imputation of sin to Christ)’ (Allen 2010:66). He concluded his exposition with this statement:

I have attempted to demonstrate the following: (1) Historically, neither Calvin nor the first generation of reformers held the doctrine of limited atonement. From the inception of the Reformation until the present, numerous Calvinists have rejected it, and furthermore, it represents a departure from the historic Christian consensus that Jesus suffered for the sins of all humanity. (2) Biblically, the doctrine of limited atonement simply does not reflect the teaching of Scripture. (3) Theologically and logically, limited atonement is flawed and indefensible. (4) Practically, limited atonement creates serious problems for God’s universal saving will; it provides an insufficient ground for evangelism by undercutting the well-meant gospel offer; it undermines the bold proclamation of the gospel in preaching; and it contributes to a rejection of valid methods of evangelism such as the use of evangelistic altar calls.

I cannot help but remember the words of the venerable retired distinguished professor of New Testament at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Jack McGorman, in his inimitable style and accent: ‘The doctrine of limited atonement truncates the gospel by sawing off the arms of the cross too close to the stake.’[5] Should the Southern Baptist Convention move toward ‘five-point’ Calvinism? Such a move would be, in my opinion, not a helpful one[6] (Allen 2010:107).

In 1 Cor 15:3, the language of ‘Christ died for our sins’ is using simple etiquette. When I’m writing to my friends and use ‘our’, I’m referring to them and me exclusively, so ‘our’ is appropriate. That is what Paul is doing here in 1 Cor 15:3. Paul is not making a statement about ‘our sins’ meaning limited atonement.

We know this because elsewhere in the NT, we have confirmation that God loves all people, Christ died for the sins of all people, and that God is not willing that any people should perish (Jn 3:16; 1 Tim 2:4-6; Tit 2:11; 2 Pt 2:1; 3:9).

Titanic

ChristArt

C. Norman Geisler responds to this verse

In his ‘answering objections to the origin of salvation’, Geisler responds to an objection ‘based on God’s unique love for the elect’. This is the objection:

Strong Calvinists claim that God does not salvifically love all people, insisting that Christ died only for the elect. If this is true, then God is not omnibenevolent. For instance: ‘He chose us’ (not ‘all’ – Eph. 1:4); ‘Christ died for our sins’ (1 Cor. 15;3); ‘I lay down my life for the sheep’ (John 10:15); ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself for her (Eph 5:25) [Geisler 2004:194, emphasis in original].

What is his rejoinder to this objection?

The fact that only believers are mentioned in some passages as the object of Christ’s death does not prove that the Atonement is limited, for several reasons.

First, Paul also said that Jesus ‘gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2:20), het no proponent of limited atonement takes this to exclude the fact that Christ died for others as well.

Second, when Paul uses terms like we, our, or us of the Atonement, it speaks only of those to whom it has been applied, not for all those for whom it was provided. In doing so, Scripture does not thereby limit the Atonement.

Third, and finally, the fact that Jesus loves His bride and died for her (Eph. 5;25) does not mean that God the Father and Jesus the Son do not love the whole world and desire them to be part of His bride, the church. John 3:16 explicitly says otherwise (Geisler 2004:195).

See also, S. Michael Houdmann, ‘Main arguments against limited atonement’ (please understand that Houdmann in this link is a 4-point Calvinist who does not believe in limited atonement).

red blood cells

(courtesy wpclipart)

Works consulted

Allen, D L 2010. The atonement: Limited or universal? In D L Allen & S W Lemke (eds), Whosoever will: A biblical-theological critique of five-point Calvinism, 61-107. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic.

Geisler, N 1999. Chosen but free. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.

Geisler, N 2004. Systematic theology: Sin, salvation, vol 3. Minneapolis, Minnesota: BethanyHouse.

Thiessen, H C 1949. Introductory lectures in systematic theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Notes:

[1] janxharris#11, 17 November 2013, Christian Forums, Soteriology, ‘What did Paul preach to the Corinthians?’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-2/ (Accessed 17 November 2013).

[2] Hammster#12, ibid.

[3] OzSpen#14, ibid.

[4] Hammster#16, ibid.

[5] At this point the footnote was, ‘Spoken to the author in a personal conversation’ (Allen 2010:107, n. 133).

[6] Here the footnote was: ‘We should heed the words of Thomas Lamb, seventeenth-century Baptist and Calvinist, who said: “… yet I deny not, but grand with him [John Goodwin], that the denial of Christs [sic] Death for the sins of all, doth detract from God’s Philanthropy, and deny him to be a lover of men, and doth in very deed destroy the very foundation and ground-work of Christian faith” (Thomas Lamb, Absolute Freedom from Sin by Christs Death for the World [London: Printed by H. H. for the authour, and are to be sold by him, 1656], 248)’ (Allen 2010:107, n. 134).

Controversies: Once saved, always saved

Ribbon Salvation Button

By Spencer D Gear

It is predictable that in discussions on Christian themes in person and online, that there will be a dialogue, pro and con, regarding eternal security (often called once saved, always saved – OSAS) or perseverance of the saints. Sometimes this discussion can become somewhat heated.

In fact, Roger Olson, an Arminian, is of the view that there will be continuing Calvinistic-Arminian conflict in Christian theology. He wrote:

Whatever the future of the story of Christian theology brings forth, it is bound to be interesting. It always has been. And there are as-yet unresolved issues for theological reformers to work on. The major one, of course, is the old debate between monergists and synergists over God’s relationship with the world. New light from God’s Word is badly needed as the extremes of process theology and resurgent Augustinian-Calvinism polarize Christian thought as never before. While I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, I predict (with fear and trembling) that this issue will be the all-consuming one in Christian theology in the twenty-first century and that new insights and suggestions for resolving it will come from non-Western Christian thinkers. All the options of Western (European and North American) thought seem to have been proposed and have led only to reactions rather than resolutions. If this particular problem of theology is ever to be solved – even in part – the crucial insights will almost certainly need to come from outside of Western culture, with its dualistic mindset that insists on seeing divine and human agencies as in competition with one another (Olson 1999:612).

(courtesy ChristArt)

A. Doubts about Arminians even being Christian

I encountered this and entered into some discussions with advocates of the OSAS position in a Christian online forum. Arminians have come under some provocative attacks (I write as a Reformed Arminian). Here are a couple of challenging examples:

(1) Kim Riddlebarger has stated, ‘Arminianism is not simply an alternative for evangelicals who are uncomfortable with certain doctrinal tenets of Calvinism. Taken to its logical conclusion, Arminianism is not only a departure from historic orthodoxy, but a serious departure from the evangel itself’ (Riddlebarger 1992:5, emphasis added).[1]

(2) Michael Horton has stated:

There will doubtless be Roman Catholics, Arminians, and others in Paradise who were saved by God’s grace even if they, like me, did not understand or appreciate that grace as much as they should have. Nevertheless, if we are going to still use “evangelical” as a noun to define a body of Christians holding to a certain set of convictions, it is high time we got clear on these matters. An evangelical cannot be an Arminian any more than an evangelical can be a Roman Catholic. The distinctives of evangelicalism were denied by Rome at the Council of Trent, by the Remonstrants in 1610, were confused and challenged by John Wesley in the eighteenth century, and have become either ignored or denied in contemporary “evangelicalism” (Horton 2013, emphasis added).[2]

Some do not want to use the dichotomy of synergism vs monergism. See: ‘Monergism Versus Synergism: Beware, Kobayashi Maru Ahead!’ (John Kebbel, Society of Evangelical Arminians). However, for plying these definitions apart, Terrance L Tiessen, wrote:

Calvinism is monergistic in its soteriology, as evidenced particularly in two points in the well known acronym, TULIP – unconditional election and irresistible (or efficacious) grace. These points identify salvation as God’s sovereign work, in which God chose to glorify himself by saving particular people, in Christ, without any conditions on their part except those which God himself efficaciously enables them to fulfill, so that salvation is God’s work from beginning to end, even though it does not come about without human response.

By contrast, though Arminians also insist that salvation is a work of God’s grace, God does not determine who will be saved by it. His prevenient grace enables people to meet the conditions (repentance, faith, and obedience) which they could never have met on their own, but whether or not that grace eventuates in their salvation is determined by the individuals, not by God. So Arminianism has been dubbed “synergistic.”

In both of these understandings of salvation, God’s grace is essential, and in both of them people are not saved apart from their response to God’s grace. But because God determines the outcome in the Calvinist construct, it has been called “monergistic,” though it is clear that God is not the only actor. The key point is that God is the decisive actor, the one whose action determines the outcome.[3]

B. John 10:28-29 and eternal security

These verses read:

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand (ESV).

In responding to an Arminian who wrote about the falling away of believers in Hebrews 6:4-6, a Calvinist wrote on Christian Forums:

Let me put it another way.

Jesus said: “My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” -John 10:29 (KJV)

If sin, causes you to come out of the Father’s hand, if you, choosing to sin, takes you out of the Father’s hand, and costs you your salvation, then God ceases to omnipotent (all powerful). Sin, and man (namely you) are able to overpower and take yourself from His care.

Now which is corect (sic)?

No man, not even yourself can take you out of God’s hand, or is sin and man more powerful than God?

Either Jesus and scriptures are correct, or Jesus told a lie and subsequently the scriptures lie also, which means sin and man are more powerful than God.[4]

Another responded, ‘The problem is: in this church age, once you are saved by God, there is no way YOU can unsave yourself no matter what you do’.[5] DeaconDean’s reply was, ‘Sure there is. Haven’t you read the thread?’[6] I’d recommend a read of this online thread to see the back and forth between eternal security supporters – unconditional eternal security – and those who believe in conditional eternal security for Christian believers, i.e. between Calvinists and Arminians.

My reply to DeaconDean[7], who cited the Calvinist, John Gill, on John 10:28, Kittel and others. was:[8]

This is what happens when you read John 10:28-29 in isolation from the rest of John’s Gospel. It is true that ‘I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand…. no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand’ (emphasis added).

BUT this is what can happen. Take a read of John 15:6. This is in the context of being in the vine – God’s vine – and Jesus being the true vine and God the Father being the vinedresser (John 15:1). This is what John 15:6 states, ‘If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned‘ (ESV, emphasis added).

The gracious power of God is comprehensively sufficient to protect every born-again Christian believer forever. But a believer can in the end be lost, because salvation is conditional. None of our enemies will be able to snatch us out of the Father’s/Jesus’ hands.
BUT … BUT, any Christians can turn from Jesus, enter into disbelief, commit apostasy and perish by wilful acts of their own. That’s what John 15:6 teaches: ‘‘If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away….’.

Therefore, John 10:28-29 is not an absolute that guarantees once-saved-always-saved (which, by the way, is not biblical language). Eternal life is granted to those who continue to believe. We know this from verses in John such as John 3:36; 6:47,

Whoever believes [Gk present tense – continues believing] in the Son has [Gk present tense – continues to have] eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36 ESV)

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes [Gk present tense – continues to believe] has [Gk present tense – continues to have] eternal life (John 6:47 ESV).

1. People can commit apostasy

Thus, eternal life only continues as long as a person continues to believe. He or she can commit apostasy by not continuing to believe in Christ for eternal life.

Chuck Templeton (from Brad Templeton’s photo site)

I know people for whom this has happened and is continuing to happen – apostasy – and they were once vibrant Christians. Consider Charles Templeton, one of Billy Graham’s associates in Billy’s early days of ministry with Youth for Christ. See ‘Death of an apostate’.

Lee Strobel interviewed Templeton for Strobel’s book The case for faith (2000:9-46). Here is a grab from that interview:

And what about Jesus? I wanted to know what Templeton thought of the cornerstone of Christianity. “Do you believe Jesus ever lived?” I asked.

“No question,” came the quick reply.

“Did he think he was God?”

He shook his head. “That would have been the last thought that would have entered his mind.”

“And his teaching – did you admire what he taught?”

“Well, he wasn’t a very good preacher. What he said was too simple. He hadn’t thought about it. He hadn’t agonized over the biggest question there is to ask.”

“Which is …”

Is there a God? How could anyone believe in a God who does, or allows, what goes on in the world?”

“And how do you assess this Jesus?” It seemed like the next logical question – but I wasn’t ready for the response it would evoke.

Templeton’s body language softened. It was as if he suddenly felt relaxed and comfortable in talking about an old and dear friend. His voice, which at times had displayed such a sharp and insistent edge, now took on a melancholy and reflective tone. His guard seemingly down, he spoke in an unhurried pace, almost nostalgically, carefully choosing his words as he talked about Jesus.

“He was,” Templeton began, “the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my readings. His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world. What could one say about him except that this was a form of greatness?”

I was taken aback. “You sound like you really care about him,” I said.

“Well, yes, he is the most important thing in my life,” came his reply. “I . . . I . . . I . . . ,” he stuttered, searching for the right word, ‘I know it may sound strange, but I have to say . . . I adore him!” . . .

” . . . Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus. Yes . . . yes. And tough! Just look at Jesus. He castigated people. He was angry. People don’t think of him that way, but they don’t read the Bible. He had a righteous anger. He cared for the oppressed and exploited. There’s no question that he had the highest moral standard, the least duplicity, the greatest compassion, of any human being in history. There have been many other wonderful people, but Jesus is Jesus….’

“Uh . . . but . . . no,’ he said slowly, ‘he’s the most . . .” He stopped, then started again. “In my view,” he declared, “he is the most important human being who has ever existed.”

That’s when Templeton uttered the words I never expected to hear from him. “And if I may put it this way,” he said as his voice began to crack, ‘I . . . miss . . . him!”

With that tears flooded his eyes. He turned his head and looked downward, raising his left hand to shield his face from me. His shoulders bobbed as he wept. . . .

Templeton fought to compose himself. I could tell it wasn’t like him to lose control in front of a stranger. He sighed deeply and wiped away a tear. After a few more awkward moments, he waved his hand dismissively. Finally, quietly but adamantly, he insisted: “Enough of that” (Strobel 2000:20-21).

Chuck Templeton, Torrey Johnson and Billy Graham in a publicity photo for the European trip taken in the YFC offices in Chicago, about March 1946. (Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College) [courtesy Justin Taylor].

However, Hebrews 6:4-6 is very clear about what happens to those who apostatise from the faith: ‘It is impossible to restore [them] again to repentance’ (6:4).

What, then, is apostasy?

Apostasy refers to

defection from the faith, an act of unpardonable rebellion against God and his truth. The sin of apostasy results in the abandonment of Christian doctrine and conduct. With respect to the covenant relationship established through prior profession of faith (passive profession in the case of baptized infants), apostates place themselves under the curse and wrath of God as covenant breakers, having entered into a state of final and irrevocable condemnation. Those who apostatize are thus numbered among the reprobate. Since the resurrection of Christ, there is no distinction between blasphemy against Christ and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (cf. Matt 12:31-32; Heb 6:4-6 ; 10:26-29 ; 1 John 5:16-17) [Karlberg 1996].

John 10:28-29 cannot be read in isolation apart from John 3:36; 6:47 and 15:6.

I have to be honest with what the text says, based on the tenses of the original language.

I do not think that you will like this kind of news (and it shouldn’t be new news for you), but that is what the texts say.

And have a guess what? First Timothy 1:19 and Hebrews 6:4-6 confirm that this can happen. People can continue to believe or to discontinue in belief. They then move from eternal life to eternal damnation. That’s how I see the Bible unfolding.

I have to be honest with the biblical text and in this case, with John’s Gospel.

I replied:[9]

So I respectfully disagree with your ‘accessment’. I do hope you mean assessment and not accessment. Accessment is not a word in my dictionary (also check Dictionary.com).

Also he wrote, ‘Now, regarding the Hebrews passage, I’m sure your (sic) familiar with Kittles (sic)?’ His name is spelled Kittel.
I agree with the Greek exegesis of Kittel (I have the 10 volumes of the Theological Dictionary that he co-edited with Gerhard Friedrich) where he explained that a person who commits apostasy cannot be brought again to repentance. That’s Bible!

See my detailed exposition of Hebrews 6:4-8 in my, ‘Once Saved, Always Saved or Once Saved, Lost Again? What you have cited from John Gill on Heb. 6:4-6 is not in agreement with the exegesis I have provided in my exposition.

I wrote, that John 10:28-29 should not be read in isolation from John 3:36; 6:47 and 15:6′. What did I notice in his response? He provided not one word to refute the content of John 3:36; 6:47 and 15:6, which teach that eternal life is conditional on people continuing to believe. People will continue to have eternal life if they continue to believe and they continue to remain in the vine. These verses are contrary to the view this person was advocating.

In my understanding of the exegesis, a once saved, always saved view is not taught by these verses that require continuing belief to enter eternal life. And that is taught by John 3:16 as well, ‘whoever believes’ means ‘whoever continues to believe’ because the Greek for ‘believes’ is a present tense Greek participle, indicating continuing action. Thus affirming the other verses that I’ve cited from John that continuing / continuous believing is needed to enter and retain eternal life.

Thus, perseverance of the saints is a much more biblical description of the perspective in Scripture – as I understand the Greek present tense used in the verses I have mentioned – than a once saved, always saved view (based on my understanding of the Greek grammar of the meaning of the present tense).

In the Baptist church in which I was raised, I was taught the view this person advocated of once saved, always saved. But my examination of these Scriptures has brought me to the view I am here sharing. I take seriously the Scriptural injunction:

‘Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers [and sisters], for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness’ (James 3:1 ESV).

The NLT and the new NIV correctly translate adelphoi as brothers and sisters, based on the Greek etymology This is shown in the New Living Translation and the latest NIV. Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon confirms that ‘brother’ as in the singular adelphos means any believer, male or female. Arndt and Gingrich note that ‘Jesus calls everyone who is devoted to him brother Mt 12:50; Mk 3:25, esp. the disciples Mt 28:10; J 20:17. Hence gener. for those in such spiritual communion Mt 25:40; Hb 2:12 (Ps 21:23[22:22), 17 al’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:15-16).

So I respectfully come to a different conclusion to yours.

C. Conditional security in John’s Gospel

Another poster wrote:[10]

John 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you ?abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.

This shows the principle and is why in John 15:6 those branches that are burned do not abide in His word as opposed to those in v7.

John 15:6-7 If anyone does not abide in Me, ??he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. ?7? If you abide in Me, and My words ?abide in you, ?you ?will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you

My response was:[11]

Now let’s do the exegesis to obtain the meaning of John 8:31, which stated in full reads, ‘So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples”’ (ESV).

‘Had believed’ is a perfect tense, active voice, participle. Thus it means that those believed in the past and had continuing results of believing. As for ‘abide’ it is an aorist subjunctive verb. It is the conditional subjunctive and a point action, but it needs to be combined with the perfect tense of ‘had believed’ to understand that the meaning is that these Jews had believed in Jesus but they had continuing results of their believing. As a result, they ‘are’ (present tense, continuous action) continuing to be his disciples.

Therefore, based on this exegesis of the Greek text, eternal security is based on continuing to be a disciple. This is not talking about once saved and no longer serving God. It is talking about once saved and continuing to be saved by continuing to believe. That’s why I find the language of ‘once saved, always saved’ to send a message that does not line up with the biblical message of continuing to believe to attain eternal life (as in John 3:16; 3:36; 6:47; 15:6).

John 15:6-7 affirms the need to continue to abide (believe) to remain in the vine.

His response was somewhat unexpected:[12]

After reading your comments here, without going back rereading all the earlier posts I am confused as to why we have disagreed. Other than these in v30 had believed just as Jesus had spoken in the preceding verses and later on in this chapter we see that it is not leading to their salvation. But as far as your other explanations in this post I would agree that saving faith is a one time event that needs not to be renewed but saving faith is a present tense action that will evidence itself in abiding in His word. God looks at the heart and even know the future so He is not sealing and unsealing His children. They are sealed unto the day of redemption. It is God holding on to us and not us holding on to God, Ps 37:23-24, God is the one performing the action of the holding on to us. That is why I agree with Paul when he said being fully persuaded that He who began the good work in you will perform it unto the end.

I’m not of the view that we are agreeing with the need to continue to believe and that it is possible for a genuine believer to commit apostasy. So I replied:[13]

I’m not so sure that we are in agreement as I have provided verses to confirm that John 10:28-29 is in harmony with John 3:16; 3:36; 6:47; and 15:6 where believers are required to continue to believe to attain eternal life. Thus OSAS, in my understanding, is an improper explanation of this view as apostasy can be committed (1 Tim 1:19; Heb 6:4-6; 1 John 4:1-3).

Is it your understanding that a person can be generally saved, continue to follow Jesus, walk away from the faith and then commit apostasy? And the person who commits apostasy cannot be brought again to repentance (Heb 6:4-6). If this is your view, then we are on the same page. But is that your view?

But the OSAS is what I was raised on and I’ve rejected it because I do not find it taught with a consistent hermeneutic in Scripture.

D. Continuing belief needed for eternal security

I do wish my two friends who have committed apostasy would be able to return to repentance, but Hebrews 6:4-6 says that is not possible as ‘they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt’ (6:6 ESV). Heb. 6:4 is adamant in its teaching about those who commit apostasy: ‘for it is impossible to restore again to repentance’. That’s not the way my limited understanding of compassion and mercy works. But that’s based on the absolute justice, empathy, love and compassion of the absolutely honest Almighty God.

I have an ultimate commitment to the Lord God Almighty who revealed His will in the infallible Scriptures (in the original languages).[14]

Let’s check out …

E. R C H Lenski, a Lutheran, on John 10:28-29

John 10:28 in Lenski’s translation is, ‘And I will give them life eternal, and they shall in no wise perish forever, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand’ (Lenski 1943:754-755). Of this verse, Lenski wrote of the second half of the verse, beginning with ‘they shall in no wise perish forever’:

This is a double and direct promise; the doubling increases the emphasis. “To perish” is to be separated from God, life, and blessedness forever. John and Paul use especially the middle voice [i.e. meaning ‘for oneself’ – SDG] of the verb in this sense…. It is the opposite of being saved…. “Shall in no way perish” would itself be enough, the modifier “forever” is added pleonastically[15]: this dreadful act shall never occur…. This promise holds good from the moment of faith onward. The verb “to perish” never means “to suffer annihilation,” or to cease to exist.

The first part of the promise is stated from the viewpoint of the sheep: they shall never perish. The second part is from the viewpoint of Jesus and of any hostile being that might attack the sheep: No one shall snatch them out of his hand…. The “hand” of Jesus is his power. His gracious power is all-sufficient to protect every believer forever (Lenski 2001:756).

But wait a minute! Are there not New Testament passages that warn about the danger of a true believer falling away? Reading Lenski on John 10:28 it sounds like Jesus’ followers are saved forever and shall never ever experience anything that would cause them to lose their salvation. But that is not what he concludes from John 10:28. He continues, ‘However weak the sheep are, under Jesus they are perfectly safe. Yet a believer may after all be lost (15:6). Our certainty of eternal salvation is not absolute. While no foe of ours is able to snatch us from our Shepherd’s hand, we ourselves may turn from him and may perish wilfully of our own accord’ (Lenski 2001:756).

His translation of John 10:29 is, ‘My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand’ (Lenski 2001:757). He explained that ‘has given’ is in the perfect tense in Greek and ‘has its usual force: a past act when the Son entered on his mission and its abiding effect as long as that mission endures’. In addition, ‘while “greater” is broad, here it must refer especially to power: the Father exceeds in power every being arrayed against the sheep (Satan, demon spirits, human foes however mighty)’ (2001:758).

But what about nobody ‘able to snatch us from our Shepherd’s hand’? Surely that sounds like a sine qua non to affirm once saved, always saved? Lenski explains:

After thus declaring the Father’s might, it might seem superfluous for Jesus to add, “and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand,” for this is certainly self-evident. The reason for the addition lies far deeper. Jesus deliberately parallels what he says of himself, “no one shall snatch them out of my hand,” with what he says of his Father, “no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” The fact that he mentions the detail (“shall snatch”) with reference to himself is due to his being on his saving mission; that he mentions the possibility (“can snatch”) with reference to the Father is due to the Father’s institution of that mission. Both thus belong together; Father and Son, fact and possibility. Does the promise of Jesus, standing there in human form before the Jews, sound preposterous, that no one shall snatch his sheep out of his hand? To snatch them out of his hand is the same as snatching them out of the Father’s hand. Remember the relation of these two hands as his relation centers in the sheep (Lenski 2001:758-759, emphasis in original).

Lenski applies this understanding to John 10:30, his translation being, ‘I and the Father, we are one’. He explains that ‘what is thus prepared [in the preceding verse] is now pronounced in so many words: “I and the Father, we are one”. The equal power to protect the sheep is due to the equality of these two persons. This makes the mighty acts of equal protection perfectly plain. This makes the mighty acts of equal protection perfectly plain’ (Lenski 2001:759).

Lenski has already indicated that John 10:28-29 does not mean that eternal security is affirmed absolutely, ‘Our certainty of eternal salvation is not absolute. While no foe of ours is able to snatch us from our Shepherd’s hand, we ourselves may turn from him and may perish wilfully of our own accord’ (2001:756).

(courtesy ChristArt)

F. Is any kind of reconciliation possible?

It is evident from these discussions on a Christian online forum that there was no movement by Calvinists affirming unconditional eternal security and my position as a Reformed Arminian, enunciating a conditional eternal security position. The view that one needs to continue to believe to guarantee eternal security (John 3:16; 3:36; 6:47; 15:6) did not make any impact on these people. It is also evident that some Calvinists, who are anti-Arminian (e.g. Riddlebarger & Horton) have doubts about Arminians being evangelical Christians and even align them with a heresy (Arianism).

There seem to be some aspects of Christian theology where there can be no reconciliation between Calvinists and Arminians. Roger Olson, an evangelical Arminian, claims that these include the nature of God and the understanding of free will. He wrote:

Contrary to popular belief, then, the true divide at the heart of the Calvinist-Arminian split is not predestination versus free will but the guiding picture of God: he is primarily viewed as either (1) majestic, powerful, and controlling or (2) loving, good, and merciful. Once the picture (blik) is established, seemingly contrary aspects fade into the background, are set aside as “obscure” or are artificially made to fit the system. Neither side absolutely denies the truth of the other’s perspective, but each qualifies the attributes of God that are preeminent in the other’s perspective. God’s goodness is qualified by his greatness in Calvinism, and God’s greatness is qualified by his goodness in Arminianism.

Arminians can live with the problems of Arminianism more comfortably than with the problems of Calvinism. Determinism and indeterminism cannot be combined; we must choose one or the other. In the ultimate and final reality of things, people either have some degree of self-determination or they don’t. Calvinism is a form of determinism. Arminians choose indeterminism largely because determinism seems incompatible with God’s goodness and with the nature of personal relationships. Arminians agree with Arminius, who stressed that “the grace of God is not ‘a certain irresistible force…. It is a Person, the Holy Spirit, and in personal relationships there cannot be the sheer over-powering of one person by another’” (in Olson 2006:73-74).

Therefore, Olson reaches the conclusion that

the continental divide between Calvinism and Arminianism, then, lies with different perspectives about God’s identity in revelation. Divine determinism creates problems in God’s character and in the God-human relationship that Arminians simply cannot live with. Because of their controlling vision of God as good, they are unable to affirm unconditional reprobation (which inexorably follows from unconditional election) because it makes God morally ambiguous at best. Denying divine determinism in salvation leads to Arminianism (Olson 2006:74).

It was Olson (2006:74, n. 21) who alerted me to what R C Sproul (1986:139-160) addressed the double-predestination issue. Sproul wrote:

DOUBLE predestination. The very words sound ominous. It is one thing to contemplate God’s gracious plan of salvation for the elect. But what about those who are not elect? Are they also predestined? Is there a horrible decree of reprobation? Does God destine some unfortunate people to hell?…

Unless we conclude that every human being is predestined to salvation, we must face the flip side of election. If there is such a thing as predestination at all, and if that predestination does not include all people, then we must not shrink from the necessary inference that there are two sides to predestination. It is not enough to talk about Jacob; we must also consider Esau (Sproul 1986:141).

Sproul regard Romans 9:16 as fatal to Arminianism. He quotes the New King James Version, ‘So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy’. The ESV reads, ‘So then it depends not on human will or exertion,[16]but on God, who has mercy’. Sproul’s commentary is:

Though Paul is silent about the question of future choices here, he does not remain so. In verse 16 he makes it clear. “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” This is the coup de grace[17] to Arminianism and all other non-Reformed views of predestination. This is the Word of God that requires all Christians to cease and desist from views of predestination that make the ultimate decision for salvation rest in the will of man. The apostle declares: It is not of him who wills. This is in violent contradiction to the teaching of Scripture. This one verse is absolutely fatal to Arminianism.

It is our duty to honor God. We must confess with the apostle that our election is not based on our wills but on the purposes of the will of God (Sproul 1986:151).

How does an Arminian respond to such an attack on the Arminian view of election/predestination and human responsibility (free will)? I am in agreement with Olson that

the nature of free will is another point where Calvinism and Arminianism diverge and where no middle ground seems possible. Because of their vision of God as good (loving, benevolent, merciful), Arminians affirm libertarian free will. (Philosophers call it incompatibilist free will because it is not compatible with determinism)…. Arminians do not believe in absolute free will; the will is always influenced and situated in a context. Even God is guided by his nature and character when making decisions. But Arminians deny that creaturely decisions and actions are controlled by God or any force outside the self (Olson 1986:75).

As noted by Olson, the Calvinistic, compatibilist free will (if Calvinists talk of free will at all)

is compatible with determinism. This is the only sense of free will that is consistent with Calvinism’s vision of God as the all-determining reality. In compatibilist free will, persons are free so long as they do what they want to do – even if God is determining their desires. This is why Calvinists can affirm that people sin voluntarily and are therefore responsible for their sins even though they could not do otherwise. According to Calvinism God foreordained the Fall of Adam and Eve, and rendered it certain (even if only by an efficacious permission) by withdrawing the grace necessary to keep them from sinning. And yet they sinned voluntarily. They did what they wanted to do even if they were unable to do otherwise. This is a typical Calvinist account of free will.[18]

Once again it is difficult to see how a hybrid of these two views of free will could be created. Could people have freely chosen to do something different than they actually did? Some Calvinists (such as Jonathan Edwards) agree with Arminians that people have the natural ability to do otherwise (e.g., avoid sinning). But what about moral ability? Arminians agree with Calvinists that apart from the grace of God all fallen humans choose to sin; their will is bound to sin by original sin manifesting itself as total depravity (Olson 2006:75).

However, Arminians describe it differently to free will. This moral ability that people have is called prevenient grace, given to them by God. Again, Olson:

Arminians do not call this free will because these people cannot do otherwise (except in terms of deciding which sins to commit!). From the Arminian perspective prevenient grace restores free will so that humans, for the first time, have the ability to do otherwise – namely, respond in faith to the grace of God or resist it in unrepentance and disbelief. At the point of God’s call, sinners under the influence of prevenient grace have genuine free will as a gift of god; for the first time they can freely say yes or no to God. Nothing outside the self determines how they will respond. Calvinists say that humans never have that ability in spiritual matters (any possibility in any matters). People always do what they want to do, and God is the ultimate decider of human wants even though when it comes to sin, God works through secondary causes And never directly causes anyone to sin. These two views are incommensurable. To the Arminian, compatibilist free will is no free will at all. To the Calvinist, incompatibilist free will is a myth; it simply cannot exist because it would amount to an uncaused effect, which is absurd[19] (Olson 2006:75-76, emphasis added).

Contrary to Sproul, Romans 9:16 is not fatal to Calvinism. The Calvinistic and Arminian views of free will are not compatible. Sproul’s view seems to involve his imposition of a Calvinistic worldview on Romans 9:16. What about Romans 9:14-18, which reads:

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

This refers back to Exodus 7 and 8. If we note that context, we see that Pharaoh ‘hardened his heart’ (Ex 8:15) and ‘Pharaoh’s heart was hardened’ by God (Ex 8:19). So none of the application in Romans 9 excludes the action of individual responsibility for Pharaoh hardening his own heart and thus God hardened it. Human responsibility was not excluded in God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart in Exodus, as it is in God’s showing mercy and demonstrating hardening Romans 9. God’s actions and human responsibility go together in God’s super plan for the universe.

Therefore, I find Sproul quite wrong in his wanting to make Romans 9:16 to be ‘absolutely fatal to Arminianism’. Calvinism’s and Arminians’ concept of free will, election and predestination are described very differently, so the finger needs to be pointed to Sproul’s faulty understanding of the differences between Arminianism and Calvinism and making his judgement on a Calvinistic basis instead of reading Arminians on their own terms.

Therefore, there can be no reconciliation on the concepts of free will between Arminians and Calvinists while they maintain the positions as expounded above.

G. Conclusion

The conclusion is that none the twain shall meet. Calvinists will continue to believe in unconditional eternal security and Reformed/classical Arminians will continue to believe that it is possible for a person to commit apostasy for whom there is then no repentance possible to return to salvation.

For a biblical explanation of prevenient grace, see my articles,

Is prevenient grace still amazing grace?

The injustice of the God of Calvinism

Some Calvinistic antagonism towards Arminians

Other writings to confirm conditional security

I have written on this topic elsewhere. See:

Spencer Gear: Conversations with a Calvinist on apostasy

Spencer Gear: Once Saved, Always Saved or Once Saved, Lost Again?

Matthew Murphy: Practical Problems with OSAS

Spencer Gear: What does it mean to shipwreck your faith?

Spencer Gear: Is the Holy Spirit’s seal a guarantee of eternal security?

Matt O’Reilly: Eternally secure, provided that…

Spencer Gear: What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?

Spencer Gear: Does God want everyone to receive salvation?

Steve Witzki: The Inadequate Historical Precedent for ‘Once Saved, Always Saved

Spencer Gear: Does God’s grace make salvation available to all people?

Spencer Gear: Calvinists, free will and a better alternative

Spencer Gear: Is it possible or impossible to fall away from the Christian faith?

Steve Jones: Calvinism Critiqued by a Former Calvinist

Roy Ingle: Holding Firmly, I Am Held (An Arminian Approach to Eternal Security)

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House)

Edwards, J n d. Freedom of the will. Christian Classics Etherial Library (CCEL).Available at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/will.html (Accessed 28 September 2013).

Horton, M S 2013. Evangelical Arminians: Option or oxymoron?[20] in Reformation online, September 28. Available at: http://www.reformationonline.com/arminians.htm (Accessed 28 September 2013).

Lenski, R C H 2001. Commentary on the New Testament: The interpretation of St. John’s Gospel. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers.[21]

Karlberg, M W 1996. Apostasy, in W A Elwell (ed), Baker’s evangelical dictionary of biblical theology. Available at BibleStudyTools.com, http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/apostasy.html (Accessed 8 July 2013).

Olson, R E 1999. The story of Christian theology: Twenty centuries of tradition and reform. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Academic.

Olson, R E 2006. Arminian theology: Myths and realities. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Academic.

Peterson, R A & Williams, M D 1992. Why I am not an Arminian. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.

Riddlebarger, K 1992. Fire and water. Modern reformation, May/June, 1-8 (Archives of Modern reformation, Riddleblog). Available at: http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/from-the-archives/fire%20and%20water.pdf (Accessed 29 September 2013).

Strobel, L 2000 The case for faith: A journalist investigates the toughest objections to Christianity. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Notes

[1] I was alerted to this citation by Olson (2006:79).

[2] Olson (2006:81) referred me to a portion of this citation, thus directing me to the original article.

[3] Terrence L Tiessen, Thoughts Theological, Is sanctification synergistic or monergistic? April 9, 2013, available at: http://thoughtstheological.com/is-sanctification-synergistic-or-monergistic/ (Accessed 29 September 2013).

[4] Christian Forums, Baptists, ‘Eternal security’, DeaconDean#73, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7775412-8/ (Accessed 28 September 2013).

[5] Danv8#74, ibid.

[6] DeaconDean#75, ibid.

[7] His post was at DeaconDean#73, ibid.

[8] OzSpen#79, ibid.

[9] OzSpen#93, ibid.

[10] iwbswiaihl #81 (emphasis in original), ibid.

[11] OzSpen#94, ibid.

[12] iwbswiaihl #96, ibid.

[13] OzSpen#98, ibid.

[14] I wrote the above 2 paragraphs as OzSpen#99, ibid.

[15] This means ‘the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy’ (Dictionary.com, accessed 28 September 2013).

[16] Here the ESV footnote is, ‘Greek not of him who wills or runs’.

[17] The online Free Dictionary gives the meaning of coup de grace as, ‘a death blow, esp. one delivered mercifully to end suffering’ and ‘any finishing or decisive stroke’.

[18] Here Olson referred to Peterson & Williams 1992:136-161).

[19] At this point, Olson gave the footnote, ‘The classic Calvinist critique of libertarian free will is found in Jonathan Edward’s treatise “Freedom of the Will”’ (Olson 1986:76, n. 23). For this treatise, see Edwards (n d).

[20] This was originally published in Modern Reformation, 1 (3) May-June 1992, available at: http://www.modernreformation.org/default.php?page=articledisplay&var1=ArtRead&var2=776&var3=searchresults&var4=Search&var5=Evangelical_Arminians (Accessed 28 September 2013).

[21] This was originally published in 1943 by Lutheran Book Concern and assigned to Augsburg Publishing House in 1961.

Blatant misrepresentation of Arminians by Calvinists

Jacob Arminius (courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear

If you want to read some of the theological misrepresentations of Arminianism, take a visit to the ‘Soteriology’ directory of Christian Forums on the Internet. It was here that I met jamantc whose icon told me that he was an ‘elected predestinarian’. My alarm bells began to ring because my experience on this forum was with Calvinists who tended to be dogmatic TULIP advocates and anti any other view. They especially detested the theology of Arminians like myself.

Jamantc wrote (take note of his misspelling of Abel):

Cain and Able (sic)

Two things I notice on all forums that debate Calvinism and Arminianism is that they resemble Cain and Able (sic). Like Arminianism Cain was a man of the world that held back from God because he seemed to think it was about himself and who God created man for his own glory and not God creating man for His Own glory. Able (sic) was like a Calvinist, He brought everything to God as a first offering, knowing that everything was about God and what God had done for him that he could never do on his own and lived a life that glorified God and made God the center and not himself. Cain destroyed Able (sic) from jealousy and if the Arminian could, he would wipe Calvinism from the face of the earth as well. Like Able (sic), Calvinist are hated for giving God all glory and taking the center off himself and knowing that he was created for God’s glory alone. I really do enjoy being hated for giving God all the glory for who I am and for all He has done for me that I couldn’t do myself. Me being hated for God sake tells me that I am not of the world as Cain (or the Arminian). If one hates me for giving God the glory for all I am and all I have, then their issue of hate is not with me, but with God Himself since He created me to give Him all the glory. A man centered gospel in not of God and glorifies only man and not God. Thank You Lord for making me who I am and one that takes no credit for that and give You all the glory as you don’t merely suggest, but as You command! The Arminian hating the Calvinist is like Cain hating Able (sic), his problem wasn’t with Able but with God for making Able (sic) glorify Him for who He is.[1]

A. How bad can a Calvinist distort Arminian theology?

My response was:[2]

Please, please learn to spell Abel. You have wrongly spelled his name 7 times in your post.

Here you have given a blatant misrepresentation of Arminianism by associating it with “A man centered gospel in not of God and glorifies only man and not God”. You have flamed Arminians to boot!

I as a Reformed/classical Arminian take the Fall into sin and its consequences very seriously. It is simply false to state that Arminianism is ‘a man-centred Gospel’. You don’t know Arminianism very well for you to misrepresent the Arminian Christian like this.

In his ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ that were delivered to the Dutch government state officials about a year before his death, Arminius made this declaration of human beings to make it VERY CLEAR that Arminianism is NOT a man-centred Gospel:

in his lapsed and sinful state, man is not capable, of and by himself, either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be qualified rightly to understand, esteem, consider, will, and perform whatever is truly good. When he is made a partaker of this regeneration or renovation, I consider that, since he is delivered from sin, he is capable of thinking, willing and doing that which is good, but yet not without the continued aids of Divine Grace’ (Arminius, Works of Arminius, v 1, 3.6.3, ‘The free will of man‘).

Could anything be clearer? Arminius believed in regeneration ‘by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit’. That is NOT a man-centred Gospel.

I asked him: ‘Would you please quit your misrepresentation of Arminians on Christian Forums?’

B. What others thought of the Calvinist’s false views

Others in this thread on the forum noted the disparaging comments towards Arminianism by this poster:

‘A sad form of misinformed prejudice from someone supposed to be filled with the Spirit of Christ. And this response from one who is neither Cal nor Arm. But I must say such a misrepresentation always only comes from this side. OP’s intended to provoke from contentious spirits wanting to rekindle the 500 year old war they started. Sad, really sad, confess your sin to God, He will forgive you and cleanse you. So why do you hate them so while accusing them of being the ones who hate?… Do you have a persecution complex? I will pray for you’.[3]

‘Well, I’m speechless. Anyone else?’[4]

‘You shouldn’t be surprised if you get an indignant reaction to suggesting that God decided who would and who would not believe (and have eternal life) irrespective of God’s foreknowledge of men’s choices.
Your OP [original post] is unnecessarily inflammatory’. [5]

‘Forced analogy. No thanks’.[6]

‘It is a rather glaring false analogy and fallacious association all rolled into one’.[7]

‘Love one another….. nah, not today’.[8]

‘I weep…truly….though if I were an Arminian I would be offended by this provocative misrepresentation of their view, but then they usually do not file complaints with the Mods so I will weep for Jam… praying for him since yesterday’.[9]

C. How Arminius promoted God-centred salvation

(Courtesy CCEL)

Let’s check out a few quotes from Arminius himself to refute the human-centred view of the Calvinist concerning Arminian salvation. I was alerted by these by a leading Arminian theologian, Roger E. Olson, in his chapter, ‘Myth 8: Arminianism is a human-centered theology’ (in Olson 2006:127-157). Olson’s sub-heading of the chapter is, ‘An optimistic anthropology is alien to true Arminianism, which is thoroughly God-centered. Arminian theology confesses human depravity, including bondage of the will’ (Olson 2006:137).

Let’s look at Arminius’ theology of salvation.

1. Salvation and grace

I ascribe to grace the commencement, the continuance and the consummation of all good, and to such an extent do I carry its influence, that a man, though already regenerate, can neither conceive, will, nor do any good at all, nor resist any evil temptation, without this preventing and exciting, this following and co-operating grace. From this statement it will clearly appear, that I by no means do injustice to grace, by attributing, as it is reported of me, too much to man’s free-will. For the whole controversy reduces itself to the solution of this question, “is the grace of God a certain irresistible force?” That is, the controversy does not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace, (for I acknowledge and inculcate as many of these actions or operations as any man ever did,) but it relates solely to the mode of operation, whether it be irresistible or not. With respect to which, I believe, according to the scriptures, that many persons resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace that is offered (Arminius n d, vol 1, 3.6.4, ‘The grace of God’, emphasis added).

Arminius promoted support of the need for grace to free the will, but this grace from God is resistible. Therefore, Arminius most certainly was God-centred in his approach to the grace of God and salvation.

2. Grace to free the will

Free will is unable to begin or to perfect any true and spiritual good, without grace. That I may not be said, like Pelagius, to practice delusion with regard to the word “grace,” I mean by it that which is the grace of Christ and which belongs to regeneration. I affirm, therefore, that this grace is simply and absolutely necessary for the illumination of the mind, the due ordering of the affections, and the inclination of the will to that which is good. It is this grace which operates on the mind, the affections, and the will; which infuses good thoughts into the mind, inspires good desires into the actions, and bends the will to carry into execution good thoughts and good desires. This grace goes before, accompanies, and follows; it excites, assists, operates that we will, and co-operates lest we will in vain. It averts temptations, assists and grants succour in the midst of temptations, sustains man against the flesh, the world and Satan, and in this great contest grants to man the enjoyment of the victory. It raises up again those who are conquered and have fallen, establishes and supplies them with new strength, and renders them more cautious. This grace commences salvation, promotes it, and perfects and consummates it. I confess that the mind of a natural and carnal man is obscure and dark, that his affections are corrupt and inordinate, that his will is stubborn and disobedient, and that the man himself is dead in sins (Arminius n d, vol 2, 9.6, ‘Grace and free will’).

The grace of Christ is needed to bring salvation according to Arminius, thus making Arminianism a God-centred theology. This grace from God commences salvation; promotes it; perfects it, and consummates it. Arminianism is God-centred theology but this grace from God is resistible.

3. Children of wrath unless liberated by Christ Jesus

All men “are by nature the children of wrath,” (Ephes. ii. 3,) obnoxious to condemnation, and to temporal as well as to eternal death; they are also devoid of that original righteousness and holiness. (Rom. v. 12, 18, 19.) With these evils they would remain oppressed forever, unless they were liberated by Christ Jesus; to whom be glory forever (Arminius n d, vol 1, 5.8, ‘The effects of this sin’).

All people are by nature children of wrath and cannot be liberated from such oppression unless they are liberated by Christ Jesus who is to be glorified forever. Arminianism again endorses a God-centred approach to liberation leading to salvation.

4. God’s preceding grace needed for salvation

Arminius maintained that ‘no man believes in Christ except he has been previously disposed and prepared, by preventing or preceding grace, to receive life eternal on that condition on which God wills to bestow it, according to the following passage of Scripture: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John vii. 17.)’ (Arminius n d, vol 2 9.8.19, ‘On faith’).

So God wills preceding grace that leads to eternal salvation, thus confirming that Arminianism is God-centred theology.

Jamantc is not the only kind of person to misrepresent Arminianism in print, on the Internet, or elsewhere. Roger Olson demonstrated how well-known Calvinists have done this. He gives examples that ‘some Calvinist accusations against Arminian theology demonstrate a nearly complete lack of knowledge or understanding of classical Arminian literature’ (Olson 2006:137). He mentions:

Edwin H Palmer in Five points of Calvinism (1972:19, 27; in Olson 2006:137-138);
James Montgomery Boice in Whatever happened to the Gospel of grace (2001:167; in Olson 2006:138);
Michael Horton, ‘Evangelical Arminians,’ Modern Reformation 1 (1992:15-19; in Olson 2006:139);
W Robert Godfrey, ‘Who was Arminius?’ Modern Reformation 1 (1992:7, 24; in Olson 2006:139-140);
Richard A Muller, God, creation, and providence in the thought of Jacob Arminius (1991:234, 271; in Olson 2006:140);
Robert A Peterson and Michael D Williams, Why I am not an Arminian (2004:39, 115-117; in Olson 2006:141).

When these leading authors misrepresent the teachings of Arminius, what hope does a person have in a Christian forum on the Internet? However, it is a warning for me as a convinced Reformed Arminian that when I critique Calvinism, I need to be accurate in the Calvinistic theology I am criticising. These misrepresentations of Calvinists of the views of Arminius and Arminianism I have taken as a warning to the possibility of any one of us to not know the opposition’s point of view.

It is a serious sin to misrepresent another’s theology.

D. Conclusion

A person would have to be ignorant of Arminius’ writings or set out deliberately to misrepresent his works, for that person to conclude that Arminius promoted ‘a man centered gospel [that is] not of God and glorifies only man and not God’.

Therefore, jamantc was promoting a false representation of the Arminian view of salvation (a straw man logical fallacy). Roger Olson’s conclusion applies to jamantc as much as to any others who misrepresent Arminianism:

The only conclusion possible is that many Calvinist critics of Arminianism have wittingly or unwittingly borne false witness against Arminius and Arminians: they have distorted beyond recognition Arminian theology about humanity. Anyone who reads real, historical Arminian literature on this subject [whether Arminianism promotes human-centred theology] will be amazed at the discrepancies between what is widely said about Arminian doctrine and what Arminians have actually written about humanity (Olson 2006:141).

I highly recommend Roger Olson’s book (Olson 2006), as it sets out to correct the myths of Arminianism that are so often promoted in theological circles and provides the correct Arminian position (realities), quoted from primary Arminian sources – including Arminius himself.

Works consulted

Arminius, J n d Works of James Arminius (online), 3 vols. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Available at: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/arminius/works1 (Accessed 22 December 2013).

Olson, R E 2006. Arminian theology: Myths and realities. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic.

Notes

[1] jamantc#1, Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘Cain and Able’, 21 December 2013. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7794043/ (Accessed 22 December 2013).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen#11, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7794043-2/ (Accessed 22 December 2013).

[3] Ibid., pshun2003#2.

[4] Ibid., Ignatius21#3.

[5] Ibid., janxharris#4.

[6] Ibid., drstevej#5.

[7] Ibid., Tzaousios#6.

[8] Ibid., Sayre#8.

[9] Ibid., pshun2003#10.

Unlimited atonement by Jesus

Sealed

(image courtesy ChristArt )

By Spencer D Gear

TULIP Calvinists promote belief in Limited Atonement. Did Jesus die for the sins of the whole world or did he die only for the sins of the elect – the church? To ask the question another way: ‘When Christ died on the cross, did he pay for the sins of the entire human race or only for the sins of those who he knew would ultimately be saved?’ (Grudem 1994:594).

Anglican Reformed theologian, J I Packer, gave this definition:

Definite redemption, sometimes called “particular redemption,” “effective atonement,” and “limited atonement,” is an historic Reformed doctrine about the intention of the triune God in the death of Jesus Christ. Without doubting the infinite worth of Christ’s sacrifice or the genuineness of God’s “whoever will” invitation to all who hear the gospel (Rev. 22:17), the doctrine states that the death of Christ actually put away the sins of all God’s elect and ensured that they would be brought to faith through regeneration and kept in faith for glory, and that this is what it was intended to achieve. From this definiteness and effectiveness follows its limitedness: Christ did not die in this efficacious sense for everyone. The proof of that, as Scripture and experience unite to teach us, is that not all are saved (Packer 1993:137; also available HERE)

Baptist Reformed theologian, Wayne Grudem, stated that

those whom God planned to save are the same people for whom Christ also came to die, and to those same people the Holy Spirit will certainly apply the benefits of Christ’s redemptive work, even awakening their faith (John 1:12; Phil. 1:29; cf. Eph. 2:2) and calling them to trust in him….

The term that is usually preferred is particular redemption, since this view holds that Christ died for particular people (especially, those who would be saved and whom he came to redeem), that he foreknew each one of them individually (cf. Eph. 1:3-5) and had them individually in mind in his atoning work(Grudem 1994;595, 596).

Is limited atonement or particular redemption taught in Scripture? For a defence of that position, see J I Packer, ‘Definite Redemption’; Packer 1994:137-139).

However, what do the Scriptures teach? We will find that unlimited atonement (Jesus died for the whole world) is taught by biblical Christianity. The following are representative passages in support of unlimited atonement:

Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (NIV)

John 1:29: “The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.'”

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John Calvin’s commentary on John 3:16 states:

16. For God so loved the world. Christ opens up the first cause, and, as it were, the source of our salvation, and he does so, that no doubt may remain; for our minds cannot find calm repose, until we arrive at the unmerited love of God. As the whole matter of our salvation must not be sought any where else than in Christ, so we must see whence Christ came to us, and why he was offered to be our Savior. Both points are distinctly stated to us: namely, that faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish….

That whosoever believeth on him may not perish. It is a remarkable commendation of faith, that it frees us from everlasting destruction. For he intended expressly to state that, though we appear to have been born to death, undoubted deliverance is offered to us by the faith of Christ; and, therefore, that we ought not to fear death, which otherwise hangs over us. And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is also the import of the term World, which he formerly used; for though nothing will be found in the world that is worthy of the favor of God, yet he shows himself to be reconciled to the whole world, when he invites all men without exception to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than an entrance into life (John Calvin, Commentary on John, vol 1, John 3:13-18, CCEL, emphasis added).

John 4:42: “They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.'”

Acts 2:21: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 5:6: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”

2 Corinthians 5:14-15: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”

1 Timothy 2:3-4: “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

1 Timothy 2:5-6: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men – the testimony given in its proper time.”

1 Timothy 4:10: “We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.”
Titus 2:11: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”

Hebrews 2:9: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

1 John 2:2: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (Please note the contrast of ‘ours’ and ‘the whole world’.)

1 John 4:14: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”

I was helped with the listing of these Scriptures by Ron Rhodes’ excellent article in support of unlimited atonement. ‘The Extent of the Atonement:Limited Atonement Versus Unlimited Atonement‘ (Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries). Another article in support of unlimited atonement is Robert P Lightner, ‘The Death Christ Died: A Case for Unlimited Atonement’.

So the teaching on unlimited atonement is very biblical. Also, the founder of Calvinism, John Calvin, believed in it.

See my article: Does the Bible teach limited atonement or unlimited atonement by Christ?

Crucify

(image courtesy ChristArt)

Works consulted

Grudem, W 1994. Systematic theology. Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press / Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Packer, J I 1993. Concise theology. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Unbelievers and the apostle Paul’s preaching[1]

PublicDomainPictures.net

A Calvinist on Christian Forums wrote: ‘He [Paul] didn’t preach to unbelievers. He witnessed to them. Find in Acts where he presented the gospel in the manner that you suggest’.[2]

I was asked by an Arminian, ‘Did Paul preach the gospel to unbelievers?’[3]

1. Did Paul preach to unbelievers?

Let’s use Acts 17:16-21 as an example with Paul in Athens and provoked by its idolatry:[4]

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new (ESV, emphasis added).

It’s a BIG stretch of the imagination to say that there were no unbelievers among:

people ‘in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there’.

‘Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers’. Were these all Christian philosophical believers that Paul preached to in Athens?

Who would address this preacher with the question, ‘What does this babbler wish to say?‘ Are you telling me that a person who heard preaching on Jesus and the resurrection who was a believer would accuse Paul of being a ‘babbler’?

I am dumbfounded to think that a born-again, regenerated, atoned-for believer would say: ‘you bring some strange things to our ears’ with preaching on Jesus and the resurrection;

‘all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there’ were all believers???? That’s a stretch.

And I haven’t dealt with Paul’s audience at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-34). Among Paul’s audience at the Areopagus were those who, ‘when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked’ (Acts 17:32). So these mockers of the resurrection of the dead were all believers, were they?

We could continue with evidence of unbelievers among the audience where Paul preached, as recorded in Acts. When Paul and Silas were in Berea, it states that ‘many of them therefore believed’ (Acts 17:12). So is it saying that believers now believed? That again is stretching my imagination beyond belief.

2. How would a Calvinist respond?

When this Calvinist claimed that Paul did not preach to unbelievers and I supplied this information from Acts 17, how do you think he might respond? He didn’t deal with the content of what I wrote, but asked a further question, ‘Where does it say he preached?’[5] He also stated:

It’s been my understanding that preaching is for believers. It’s the work if the preacher/teacher. Witnessing is what you do with unbelievers.

I also understand that these terms can be a bit ambiguous. So it won’t be a hill I’m dying on.[6]

The Calvinist’s persistence and dogmatism on Paul not preaching to the unbelievers is exposed by careful exegesis of Acts 17.

3. Paul did preach to unbelievers!

St Paul preaching in Athens

Therefore, I provided this exegesis:[7] He preached in Athens to unbelievers about Jesus and the resurrection, according to Acts 17:18.

In the portion I quoted from Acts 17:18, it stated: ‘ Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection‘ (ESV).

The Greek word translated ‘preacher’ (ESV) is kataggeleus, which is a masculine noun, based on the verb, kataggellw.[8] What is the meaning of kataggellw?

According to Arndt & Gringrich’s Greek lexicon, it means ‘proclaim (solemnly) … the gospel 1 Cor 9:14’. In Acts 4:2; 13:5; 15:36 and 17:13 the meaning is ‘proclaim in the person of Jesus the resurrection from the dead’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:410).

It is straining at a gnat to make ‘proclaim’ not mean preaching today as with Billy Graham’s preaching/proclaiming the Gospel. It meant ‘proclaim’ in the Book of Acts, just as it does today.
‘Preaching’ (ESV) is the imperfect, middle, indicative verb of euaggelizw. What is the meaning of euaggelizw? It means ‘bring or announce good news … mostly specifically of the divine message of salvation, the Messianic proclamation, the gospel … proclaim, preach’ (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:317). According to the ‘bible’ of Greek dictionaries (lexicons), Arndt & Gingrich, when Paul was in Athens he proclaimed, preached the good news of the Gospel of salvation, according to Acts 17:18.

Therefore, it is incorrect to write that Paul did not preach to unbelievers according to the Book of Acts. The unbelievers knew he was proclaiming/preaching, and claimed he was ‘a preacher of “foreign divinities” – because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection’ (Acts 17:18). It is this Calvinist who is wrong by claiming that Paul did not preach to unbelievers in the Book of Acts. The etymology of the Greek words confounds that understanding.

Also see the article, ‘Clues for preaching to an unbelieving world’ (including clues from the Book of Acts).

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature.[9] Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).

Notes:

[1] This is my post as OzSpen #410, Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘What did Paul preach to the Corinthians?’ available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-41/ (Accessed 23 November 2013).

[2] Ibid., Hammster #327, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-33/#post64529689.

[3] Ibid., janxharris #364, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-39/.

[4] Ibid., OzSpen #391, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-40/.

[5] Ibid., Hammster #395.

[6] Ibid., Hammster #394.

[7] Ibid., OzSpen #410, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-41/.

[8] I have used ‘w’ to transliterate the omega, to differentiate it from ‘o’, as a transliteration of omicron, as the regular transliteration of omega is not accepted by the html of Christian Forums website. The usual transliteration of the Greek omega is ‘?’.

[9] This is ‘a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörtbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur’ (4th rev & augmented edn 1952) (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:iii).

Copyright (c) 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document is free content. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the OpenContent License (OPL) version 1.0, or (at your option) any later version. This document last updated at Date: 13 December 2013.

This was a false charge against Arminians: ‘God does not hate’

(image courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

If you want to read misrepresentation of a person’s theological position, take a read of the Calvinist vs Arminian debates on Christian forums on the Internet. I picked up one that stated (discussed below): ‘So much of synergistic, Arminian theology is predicated on the (false) foundation that God can’t possibly hate anyone and instead, actually loves every single person’.[1]

Here is the fuller example from Christian Forums, a forum I frequent regularly as OzSpen for some iron-sharpening-iron experiences (Proverbs 27:17 NIV).

A Calvinist started a thread, ‘Does God hate anyone?’ with this comment:[2]

Psalm 5:5, “The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity,”
Psalm 11:5, “The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”
Lev. 20:23, “Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I shall drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them.”
Prov. 6:16-19, “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: 17 Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, 19 A false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.”
Hosea 9:15, “All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels.”
Rom 9:13 “As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

So much of synergistic, Arminian theology is predicated on the (false) foundation that God can’t possibly hate anyone and instead, actually loves every single person.

It’s a presupposition that isn’t true (see below), yet their entire theology is built on it. What they seemingly fail to realize is that hate is not always a wicked thing. There is such a thing as righteous hate. For example, I hate abortion. In such a situation my hate is justified and is not an evil, but a good. I hate what is evil.

God, in the same way, hates what is evil. His hatred is free from the stain of pride or sin. He hates what is evil, and mankind is evil. It is not wrong of God to hate someone. Yet for some reason, the idea that God could hate someone is taboo in the typical Arminian discussions.

That being said, it’s ironic that some of the attacks of the synergists on these forums have against Calvinism is “Calvinism is wrong, cuz in Calvininism (sic), God hates people!!! RAWR!” When in actuality, as you can see above, all they’re doing is saying Calvinists are guilty of believing what the Bible teaches.

Hardly an accusation!

1. God can’t possibly hate??

Hate Argue

(image courtesy ChristArt)

This was part of his statement above to which I responded:

‘So much of synergistic, Arminian theology is predicated on the (false) foundation that God can’t possibly hate anyone and instead, actually loves every single person…. Yet for some reason, the idea that God could hate someone is taboo in the typical Arminian discussions.

That being said, it’s ironic that some of the attacks of the synergists on these forums have against Calvinism is “Calvinism is wrong, cuz in Calvininism (sic), God hates people!!!’.

I wrote that he provided not one shred of evidence to support this accusation. There was not one quote from an Arminian to state that the Arminian does not believe that God hates. Zero examples were provided. This makes it nothing more than his assertion – his bias against Arminians.

When he makes a denunciation against a theological position with which he disagrees with this kind of assertion, the folks who read his post need his evidence. Without evidence, his posts sound awfully like hot air to me.[3]

1.1 My poor definition

When I challenged him on his, he referred back to my statement in another thread in which I asked, ‘What about the other half of the Calvinistic story? God hated the rest of humanity and sends them to damnation – guaranteed!’[4] I must admit that I did not state this very well when I was referring to the Calvinistic doctrine of double predestination. Therefore, that type of response was expected from a Calvinist (and I deserved it): ‘Here’s evidence that Arminians can’t stand the idea that God would hate anyone. As you can see from this evidence, clearly Oz is showing that he abhors the idea that God hates someone. That’s the only reason he said what he said. Why else would he?’[5]

The issue that he was making a big deal about was what he thought was the meaning of my statement. The facts are that it was my poorly worded statement of the ‘other half of Calvinism’ that was the issue. It was this statement of mine that he took to mean that Arminians do not believe that God hates: ‘What about the other half of the Calvinistic story? God hated the rest of humanity and sends them to damnation – guaranteed!’

This is how I should have said it: ‘What about Calvinism’s double-predestination that makes God the one who foreordains damnation for a large chunk of humanity? The reprobate don’t have an opportunity to get out of that eternal damnation because of the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional reprobation’.

It is NOT a bad tactic that God, in his holiness, righteousness/justice, hates evildoers. I find it to be a bad tactic that a large chunk of humanity is not given the opportunity – according to Calvinistic theology – to respond to the Gospel and receive eternal life. Why? Because they are unconditionally, eternally damned from before the foundation of the world by God himself. I’m talking of the Calvinist’s promotion of double predestination – predestination to salvation and predestination to reprobation.[6]

2. Double predestination

This is an example of a trumped up charge by this fellow against me, a Reformed/Classical Arminian. It is his straw man fallacy against me. He has created a theology which he THINKS I believe but I DON’T. That makes it a straw man fallacy. I urged him to quit this illogical thinking against me.

I agree with James Arminius when he wrote:

Love is an affection of union in God, the objects of which are God himself and the good of justice or righteousness, the creature and its felicity [Prov. 16:4; Ps 9:7; John 3:16; Wisdom 11:24-26]….

Hatred is an affection of separation in God, whose primary object is injustice or unrighteousness [Ps 5:5; Ezek 25:11; Deut 25:15-16; Isa 1:24]; and the secondary, the misery of the creature. The former is from “the love of complacency;” the latter, from “the love of friendship.” But since God properly loves himself and the good of justice, and by the same impulse holds iniquity in detestation; and since he secondarily loves the creature and his blessedness, and in that impulse hates the misery of the creature [Ps 9:5; Deut 28:63], that is, he wills it to be taken away from the creature; hence, it comes to pass, that he hates the creature who perseveres in unrighteousness, and he loves his misery [Isa 66:4].

Hatred, however, is not collateral to love, but necessarily flowing from it; since love neither does nor can tend towards all those things which become objects to the understanding of God. It belongs to him, therefore, in the first act, and must be placed in him prior to any existence of a thing worthy of hatred, which existence being laid down, the act of hatred arises from it by a natural necessity, not by liberty of the will (Arminius 1977a:45; 1977b:456, emphasis in original).

I asked: ‘When will you quit using a false representation of my theology?’

The Scriptures are abundantly clear and he had already provided a limited list of such Scriptures, that God abhors sin. Psalm 5:5 is very clear when David, addressing God, stated, ‘You hate all evil doers’ (ESV). As Arminius has stated, ‘Hatred, however, is not collateral to love, but necessarily flowing from it’.

I agree with W S Plumer, in his commentary on the Psalms, when he wrote of Psalm 5:5,

Those do greatly slander God, who teach that he will punish sin only because it is opposed to his law or his will, and not because it is opposed to his infinite, eternal, unchangeable rectitude. So repugnant to God’s nature is iniquity, that he would not save even his elect, except in a way that should fully and forever put away both the guilt and stain of sin, and bring all conceivable odium on transgression. God would not even spare his Son, when he stood in the place of sinners, lest he might seem to spare sin. Could he cease to hate it, he would cease to be worthy of love and confidence. Nor is it merely some forms of sin that God abhors, but he hates all workers of iniquity (Plumer 1967/1975:81, emphasis in original).

That is what I believe.

When will he quit building straw men about my theology? When will he renounce inventing my theology and making false charges against my biblical thinking?

2.1 How is double predestination defined?

According to a Calvinistic website, double predestination is:

the view that God sovereignly and freely chose to predestine some to heaven (the elect) and some to hell (the reprobate). This predestination is not based on anything in the person nor is it based on what the foreseen actions and/or beliefs of that person would have been (CARM).

Another explanation was put more bluntly: ‘Double predestination is the belief that God creates some people whose purpose in existence is to be sent to hell’ (Houdmann 2013).

Calvinist theologian, Loraine Boettner, explained unconditional reprobation this way:

The condemnation of the non-elect is designed primarily to furnish an eternal exhibition, before men and angels, of God’s hatred for sin, or, in other words, it is to be an eternal manifestation of the justice of God…. This decree displays one of the divine attributes which apart from it could never have been adequately appreciated. The salvation of some through a redeemer is designed to display the attributes of love, mercy, and holiness (Boettner 1932:121-122).

John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion

(image courtesy Wikipedia)

John Calvin’s version was:

In actual fact, the covenant of life is not preached equally among all men, and among those to whom it is preached, it does not gain the same acceptance either constantly or in equal degree. In this diversity the wonderful depth of God’s judgment is made known. For there is no doubt that this variety also serves the decision of God’s eternal election. If it is plain that it comes to pass by God’s bidding that salvation is freely offered to some while others are barred from access to it…. A baffling question this seems to many. For they think nothing more inconsistent than that out of the common multitude of men some should be predestined to salvation, others to destruction (Calvin 1960:920-921; 3.21.1).

Whoever, then, heaps odium upon the doctrine of predestination openly reproaches God, as if he had unadvisedly let slip something hurtful to the church….

No one who wishes to be thought religious dares simply deny predestination, by which God adopts some to hope of life, and sentences others to eternal death. But our opponents, especially those who make foreknowledge its cause, envelop it in numerous petty objections. We indeed, place both doctrines in God, but we say that subjecting one to the other is absurd….

We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is fore-ordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death (Calvin 1960:926; 3.21.4-5).

Indeed many, as if they wished to avert a reproach from God, accept election in such terms as to deny that anyone is condemned. But they do this very ignorantly and childishly, since election itself could not stand except as set over against reprobation…. Those whom God passes over, he condemns; and this he does for no other reason than that he wills to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his own children….

Paul ascribes to, and claims for, God the credit for salvation, while he casts the blame for their perdition upon those who of their own will bring it upon themselves. But thought I should admit to them that Paul, using a different expression, softens the harshness of the former clause, it is utterly inconsistent to transfer the preparation for destruction to any earlier context: God aroused Pharaoh [Rom 9:17]; then, “he hardens whom he pleases” [Rom. 9:18]. From this it follows that God’s secret plan is the cause of hardening (Calvin 1960:947-949; 3.23.1).

3. A Calvinist continues to niggle

The Calvinist with whom I am interacting wrote: ‘Ok, so your problem is not with the fact that God hates them (coulda fooled me since you included it as part of the statement), but rather, your problem is with the fact that God throws guilty people into hell? How is that a problem exactly? They’re guilty, aren’t they?’[7]

My response was:[8] When you continue niggling me like this – after I have corrected my statement – I will not continue to communicate with you on this topic as you are here indicating that you do not want to accept the change of language that I gave. ‘Coulda fooled me’ is your rejection of what I wrote.

My issue is not with God sending guilty people to hell (Hades and then Gehenna) as that is what the Bible teaches.

My issue is with Calvinism and its requirement that God eternally damns a large chunk of humanity from before the foundation of the world. They will never, ever be given the opportunity to respond to the Gospel and repent because of Calvinism’s theology of double-predestination. That is a theology I do not find in Scripture. It is a promotion of God’s injustice.

That is not the Gospel that I read in John 3:16; 3:26; Acts 16:30-31; 1 Tim 2:3-4; 1 John 2:2 and 2 Peter 3:9.

See also this assessment of John Piper’s views on double predestination: ‘Double talk by a double predestinarian‘.

The Calvinist continued on the forum:

If God condemns them on judgement day, and God is eternal and has always known that would be what happens, it makes sense that God considered those people as condemned from eternity past. You can’t separate God’s knowledge from what actually happens. In fact, this charge of yours works equally against Arminianism, too, because even in Arminiansm, God elected the elect before the foundation of the world, which means that he didn’t elect everyone else, effectually condemning them from eternity past. The only way you, as an Arminian, can escape this dilemma is if you embrace Open Theism, and say that somehow God didn’t know who the elect or the condemned/non-elect would be.

The Arminian view is very different from Calvinistic double-predestination. Deterministic foreordination from before the foundation of the world is radically different from the scriptural position:

To those who are elect exiles in the dispersion … according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood (1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV).

We know from both Romans 8:29-30 and 1 Peter 1:1-2 that God chose people in Christ for salvation whom he foreknew would accept Jesus as Saviour. These Scriptures leave no doubt that election is based on God’s foreknowledge.

Because Scripture repeatedly teaches that human beings are responsible for accepting or rejecting salvation, we know that this affirms the theology of election based on foreknowledge in Rom 8:29-30; 1 Pt 1:1-2.

I urged this fellow: Please don’t give me the line that because all human beings are hopelessly dead in sin that they cannot respond to God’s offer of salvation. I know that that is an incorrect perspective because Titus 2:11 tells us so: ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people (ESV, emphasis added).

In God’s foreknowledge, He knows what every human being will do with this restored ability and what does God do? He elects to salvation these people and this is in harmony with His knowledge (foreknowledge) of the choice these people will make.

Hebrew Bible (image courtesy Wikipedia)

3.1 A wrong understanding of Arminianism – again!

This Calvinist wrote:

In Arminianism, God elects the elect before the foundation of the world. That means even in Arminianism, some people are born into this world as non-elect and are therefore headed to hell from the moment of their birth. Do you agree? If you disagree, then that means you don’t truly believe that God elected the elect (even conditionally) from before the foundation of the world. How do you escape this dilemma?[9]

My reply was:[10]

This is your misrepresentation of Arminian soteriology. It is what you THINK this Arminian’s theology is. But you are wrong about my view.

The facts are that all human beings are damned (Rom 6:23). God has provided his grace unto salvation to all human beings (Tit 2:11). Salvation of every human being was made available to all human beings (1 John 2:2), i.e. salvation has been purchased all human beings have been made able to be saved.

However, there cannot be any automatic system by which all are saved through Christ’s death. That would lead to the unbiblical doctrine of universalism.

The gift of salvation is only possible for those who hear the Gospel of the Saviour and receive Him by faith (Eph 2:8-9).

I find that Norm Geisler summarises God’s position nicely as it has been revealed in Scripture as to what Jesus did for all human beings through his blood sacrifice on the cross:

The salvation of everyone was not immediately applied; it was simply purchased. All persons were made savable, but not all persons were automatically saved. The gift was made possible by the Savior, but it must be received by the sinner (Eph. 2:8-9; cf. John 1:12). In short, the salvation of all sinners from God’s eternal wrath is possible, but only those who accept Christ’s payment for their sins will actually be saved from it (Geisler 2003:405, emphasis in original).

The Calvinistic opponent online misunderstood the Arminian perspective. His claim was that Arminians do not like the God who hates. I hope I’ve demonstrated in this article that the God who hates is one with the God who loves and it was my poor writing content that led the Calvinist to pick up one of my wrong wordings of the God who hates sin and the wrongdoer.

‘By election we mean that sovereign act of God in grace, whereby from all eternity he chose in Christ Jesus for Himself and for salvation, all those whom he foreknew would respond positively to prevenient grace’ (Thiessen 1949:156). God in his foreknowledge (before the foundation of the world) knows who these elect people are. But their election is effected when they believe in Jesus in space and time as a response to the Gospel proclamation.

I suggested that my online Calvinistic opponent gain a better understanding of Arminianism. But I’m not holding my breath.
He stated: ‘If you disagree, then that means you don’t truly believe that God elected the elect (even conditionally) from before the foundation of the world. How do you escape this dilemma?’

I don’t have to escape a dilemma. The Calvinist does because he was promoting an incorrect view of Arminianism. His view could be overcome quite easily by becoming an accurate student of Arminianism, instead of inventing what he did in his post – a straw man fallacy. Again!

However, I need to be fair. My statement about God’s hate was not as accurate as it should have been and he was responding to that incorrect exposition. I have corrected that in my response to him online and in this article.

4. How a discussion ends

When a Calvinist doesn’t understand Arminian theology (but thinks he does), this is how this conversation petered out.

He asked:

‘Did election happen before the foundation of the world? Yes or no?…
In other words, why do you Arminians quote verses about God electing based on “foreknowledge”, if you don’t believe election happened “before” a person believed? [11]

My reply was predictable:[12] Straw man fallacy again.

When will you quit using your illogical fallacies? It’s time that you read the works of James Arminius so that you understood the content of his theology.

You have here again demonstrated that your understanding of Arminian election is false.

If you continue with false views of Arminian theology, I’ll simply reply: straw man fallacy because that’s what you are regularly doing in your responses to me.

If I understood Calvinism as poorly as you understand Arminianism, you’d be complaining big time about my views. It’s time for you to have accurate knowledge of Arminianism by studying Arminius himself.

A good starter for you could be Roger E Olson 2006. Arminian theology: Myths and realities. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic.
You have been loading up with lots of Arminian myths that you are feeding to me. It doesn’t work with me.

He asked: ‘However, by these new words, you seem to have changed beliefs, and now believe that election actually happens in time. You seem to no longer believe that God, before the foundation of the world, elected all who He foresees will believe, to instead believing that God elects those who believe at the moment of their belief’.[13]

My response should have been expected: Don’t you understand the timelessness of God?[14]

Calvo response to me again: ‘It’s because I can’t pin down your beliefs, you are always saying two different things and contradicting yourself’.[15] Surely this was an expected response?[16]

You don’t seem to get it that its because your beliefs about Arminianism are false – your presenting straw man fallacies – that leads to your seeing my statements as contradictions. They don’t agree with your understanding of Arminianism.
Seems to me that you don’t know Arminian theology very well at all and there is no point in continuing the discussion any further.

Why? When he has a contorted understanding of Arminianism, there is no point in discussing Arminian theology as he continues to impose his Calvinism on it. We are a country mile from agreeing on election.

How does God set about saving people from sin?

5. Steps to save people from sin

One of the finest, brief theological summaries I have read to determine how God saves people from sin is by Henry Thiessen (the 1949 edition). His is an Arminian perspective with sound exposition.

Henry C Thiessen (image courtesy Wheaton College)

Thiessen admitted that Christians agree that God has decreed to save human beings but they are not agreed on how God does that. While he does not mention this clash, he is particularly referring to the Arminian vs Calvinistic controversy over the how of receiving eternal salvation.

These steps to salvation, according to Thiessen (1949:154-158), include:

The freedom of human beings;
Prevenient grace;
God’s foreknowledge;
God’s gracious election;
Special or saving grace.

Let’s examine these briefly:

5.1 Freedom of human beings[17]

Jacobus Arminius (image courtesy Wikipedia)

The Works of James Arminius (Christianbook.com)

1. All Christians agree that God decreed to save human beings but the difference comes in HOW he does this.

2. God takes the initiative in salvation and this is not based on His arbitrary will but on His wise and holy counsel. We see this through God’s dealing with Adam and Eve after the fall (Gen. 3:8-9). See Scriptures general teaching in Rom. 2:4; Titus 2:11. The free will in salvation is implied in exhortations to turn to God (See Prov. 1:23; Isa. 31:6; Ezek. 14:6; 18:32; Joel 2:13-14; Matt. 18:3; Acts 3:19) and repent (1 Kings 8:47; Matt. 3:2; Mark 1:15; Luke 13:3, 5; Acts 2:38; 17:30), and to believe (2 Chron. 20:20; Isa. 43:10; John 6:29.; 14:1; Acts 16:31; Phil. 1:29; 1 John 3:23).

3. God has a very high regard for freedom and He has made human beings capable of choosing whether or not to obey and serve God.

4. Freedom has two forms in Scripture:

The ability to carry out the dictates of one’s nature;
The ability to act contrary to one’s nature.

5. Before they sinned, men and angels had freedom in both of these senses.

6. Following the fall, the human beings lost the ability not to sin (see Gen. 5:5; Job 13:10; Jer. 13:23; 17:9; Rom. 3:10-18; 8:5-8). They are now free only in the sense that they can do as their fallen nature suggests.

7. Then there’s the classic from the OT in two different versions with a similar compelling message, ‘Choose this day whom you will serve’. So human beings have the God-given ability to choose which God or gods they will serve:

Joshua 24:14-16 (ESV):

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. [15] And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, CHOOSE THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” [16] Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods,

Joshua 24:15-16 (KJV):

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YE WILL SERVE; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. [16] And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods;

Notice the options (choices) given in this Scripture:

Serve the Lord;
Choose whom you will serve;
You can choose the gods which your fathers chose,
The gods of the Amorites;
Joshua and his house will serve the Lord;
The people could forsake the Lord to serve other gods.

Paul Cornford, minister of North Pine Presbyterian Church, Petrie, Qld., Australia, preached on 11 September 2016 on ‘Joshua 24: The Covenant at Shechem’. He stated of Joshua 24:15 that this verse does not teach there is a choice to serve God or the gods. Instead, ‘choose this day is a choice between false gods. It is not a choice to serve God. It is not a case of coming to the best God. Presbyterians are not into decisionism’.

I was in the service when he preached this sermon and this quote is based on the notes I took of the sermon. I take notes from every sermon I hear. From my dot points above, Paul Cornford has not preached a message consistent with the content of Josh 24:15-16. I conveyed this to him after the service. His Calvinism is so ingrained in his thinking that he cannot allow human choice anywhere in the process of responding in faith to God or other gods.

8. There are texts that presuppose a genuine human freedom, even a freedom to say yes or no to God. Even a Calvinist such as Don (D A) Carson admits this under 9 headings:

People face a multitude of divine exhortations and commands;
People are said to obey, believe, and choose God;
People sin and rebel against God;
Their sins are judged by God;
People are tested by God;
People receive divine rewards;
The elect are responsible to respond to God’s initiative;
Prayers are not mere showpieces scripted by God, and
God literally pleads with sinners to repent and be saved (Carson 1981: 18-22).

These headings by a Calvinist in trying to understand the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility in salvation provide a measure of human freedom in our communication with and response to God.
Simply stated, free will is theologically defined as the God-given ability for human beings to make a contrary choice.

BUT how can human beings become saved, redeemed, and cleansed from sin? Is it dependent on God’s unconditional election and irresistible grace of Calvinism or is there a better biblical alternative?

I am convinced there is a better explanation and part of that explanation involved God’s prevenient grace.

5.2 Prevenient grace has been provided.[18]

1. Prevenient grace means that God must take the initiative if human beings are to be saved. That God takes the initiative in salvation is seen as far back as how He dealt with Adam and Eve after the Fall into sin (see Gen 3:8-9). We see it also in other passages such as Isa 59:15-16; John 15:16.

a. Note Rom 2:4, ‘Not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance’ (ESV).

b. Titus 2:11, ‘For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’.

2. We have, through this grace, ‘the blessings of life, health, friends, fruitful seasons, prosperity, the delay of punishment, the presence and influence of the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the Church, manifestations of the common grace of God’ (Thiessen 1949:155).

3. This common grace of God is not adequate for salvation, but it does reveal the goodness of God to sinful creatures.

4. The ‘common grace of God also restores to the sinner the ability to make a favorable response to God. . . God, in His grace, makes it possible for all men to be saved’ (Thiessen 1949:155).

5. The freeing of the human will in relation to salvation doesn’t mean that prevenient grace enables a person to change his bent of the will in favor of God. It doesn’t mean that he can finish with his sin and make himself acceptable to God.

6. ‘It does mean that he can make an initial response to God, as a result of which God can give him repentance and faith. He can say, ‘Turn thou me, and I shall be turned'” (Jer. 31:18-19; See also Lam. 5:21; Ps. 80:3, 19; 85:4) [Thiessen 1949:156].

7. Thiessen believed the biblical material says that a person ‘has had a measure of freedom restored to him…. He can in some measure act contrary to his fallen nature … if he will say this much, then God will turn him, grant him repentance (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25) and faith (Rom. 12:3; 2 Pt. 1:1). The common grace of God is now seen to be intended to induce man to make this response’ (Thiessen 1949:156).

Brian Abasciano explained the nature of prevenient grace:

God calls all people everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, enabling those who hear the gospel to respond to it positively in faith as he draws all people toward faith in Jesus, pierces the darkness of their hearts and minds with the shining of his light, enlightens their minds, communicates his awesome power with the gospel that incites faith, woos them with his kindness, convicts them by his Spirit, opens their hearts to heed his gospel, and positions them to seek him as he is near to each one.

All of this is what is known in traditional theological language as God’s prevenient grace. The term “prevenient” simply means “preceding.” Thus, “prevenient grace” refers to God’s grace that precedes salvation, including that part of salvation known as regeneration, which is the beginning of eternal spiritual life granted to all who trust in Christ (John 1:12-13). Prevenient grace is also sometimes called enabling grace or pre-regenerating grace. This is God’s unmerited favor toward totally depraved people, who are unworthy of God’s blessing and unable to seek God or trust in him in and of themselves. Accordingly, Acts 18:27 indicates that we believe through grace, placing grace preveniently (i.e. logically prior) to faith as the means by which we believe. It is the grace that, among other things, frees our wills to believe in Christ and his gospel. As Titus 2:11 says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (Abasciano 2013).

5.3 God’s foreknowledge

How do God’s foreknowledge and election work in providing salvation? Henry Thiessen’s helpful summary of God’s foreknowledge is:

If God could foreknow that man would sin without causing him to sin; if he foreknew that the inhabitants of Keilah would betray David into the hands of Saul before they had had the chance to do so (1 Samuel 23:11-12); if Jesus could know that the fate of Tyre and Sidon, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, would have been different had they had the manifestations of His works which were granted to Chorazin and Bethsaida and to Capernaum (Matthew 11:21-24); if God could foreknow that the Jews would kill Christ without causing them to do so and before he had created man (Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28); then He can also foreknow what man will do in response to prevenient grace, whether or not they will receive “the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2). The Scriptures teach that election is based on foreknowledge (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:1-2) (Thiessen 1949:156).

Another way of putting this is summarised by Robert Picirilli (2000) in his article on foreknowledge, freedom and the future:

If God could foreknow that man would sin without causing him to sin; if he foreknew that the inhabitants of Keilah would betray David into the hands of Saul before they had had the chance to do so (1 Samuel 23:11-12); if Jesus could know that the fate of Tyre and Sidon, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, would have been different had they had the manifestations of His works which were granted to Chorazin and Bethsaida and to Capernaum (Matthew 11:21-24); if God could foreknow that the Jews would kill Christ without causing them to do so and before he had created man (Luke 22:22; Acts 2:23; 4:27-28); then He can also foreknow what man will do in response to prevenient grace, whether or not they will receive “the grace of God in vain” (2 Corinthians 6:1-2). The Scriptures teach that election is based on foreknowledge (Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:1-2) (Thiessen 1949:156).

The Reformation Arminian (together with the classic Arminian, for that matter) affirms that the future is perfectly foreknown by God and yet

is, in both theory and practice, open and undetermined. That is, future free decisions, though certain, are not necessary. In other words, the person who makes a moral choice is free to make that choice or a different one.

This is a form of indeterminism—better, “self-determinism”—as compared to determinism or compatibilism. For his part, the Arminian is satisfied that this is required if one is to affirm the reality of both God’s omniscience (all-encompassing foreknowledge) and human freedom.[19]

It seems to me that two things need mentioning as potential obstacles to understanding the position I have set forth here. One is that some who discuss the issues often introduce unnecessary matters into the discussion. Among these are discussions of God’s relationship to time and of “possible worlds.”[20] I am quick to acknowledge the intellectual stimulation involved in speculation about such matters. But “speculation” is precisely the right word. The fact is that we cannot finally be sure enough about such matters to use them definitively in this discussion. Furthermore, we do not need to, as I have attempted to demonstrate. The issue discussed in this paper is much simpler than that: God’s knowledge of the future in no way determines the future.

The other “problem” is that people simply tell themselves, as though having grasped some great secret, that if God knows the future it cannot be any other way. This, I believe, is not intuition but the “sophism” that Watson spoke about (in the quotation cited above). One erects, perhaps unintentionally, the mental block that keeps him from seeing otherwise. No doubt such thinking is easy to fall into, and equally difficult to overcome. As I have attempted to show, the way out of this difficulty lies first in the simple realization that when we speak of “what will be” or that “God knows what will be,” we have already affirmed “what will be.” One needs only to follow that with a forthright and confident statement—repeated, if need be, until he “sees” it is so—that though God knows the way I will choose, I will be free to choose that way or another when the time comes. God also knows that.

For the Reformation Arminian, then, the final set of facts to hold is: (1) the future is certain and foreknown certainly by God; (2) this is in full harmony with the fact that human beings make free, moral choices for which they are held justly responsible. In short, certainty is not necessity and precludes neither freedom nor ability to act in more than one way. In the end, this view has the advantage of fully explaining both Scripture and human experience (Piricilli 2000:270-271)

How does this view of foreknowledge fit with God’s election of people to salvation?

5.4 Concerning gracious election:

Thiessen provided this concise understanding:

By election we mean that sovereign act of God in grace, whereby from all eternity He chose in Christ Jesus for Himself and for salvation, all those whom He foreknew would respond positively to prevenient grace. Notice that it is a sovereign act in grace (Rom. 11:5): God was under no necessity or obligation to elect anyone. It took place in eternity (Eph 1:4), and is not something that occurs as human history develops. It is based on the merits of Christ (Eph. 1:4); we are accepted in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6). It was a choice of men for Himself (Ex. 19:4-6; Num. 8:17; Isa. 43:21; Rom. 11:4) and for salvation (2 Thess 2:13); and it is based on His foreknowledge of what men would do in response to His prevenient grace (2 Cor. 6:1, 2; Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:1, 2) (Thiessen 1949:156).

Keith Schooley explained a unique aspect of the Arminian perspective on election of people to salvation:

The Reformed view sees God essentially as electing individuals (say, Peter, Paul, and Mary) who together become corporately the people of God. Those who hold this view incorrectly assume that Arminians also focus on the individual, but merely get around God’s election by basing it on foreknowledge of the individual’s exercise of faith. Arminians, however, do not start with the individual. They start with the plan of salvation, centered on the sacrifice of Christ. The point of the election passages, says the Arminian, is the sovereignly and unconditionally determined criterion of election: faith in Christ for the atonement of one’s sins. That criterion becomes the defining characteristic of the people of God. God’s people are not the wealthy, or the intellectual, or the noble, or the strong, or even those physically descended from Abraham or those who strive the hardest to follow the Law. They are those who trust in Christ for their salvation. Period. Through the power of the Gospel we are enabled to believe; those who choose to do so become a part of that chosen people (which is what elektoi means). But God’s eternal decree is that He has chosen to choose those who believe, as opposed to any other group. That is unconditional and unchangeable (Schooley 2013).

Since I am an active advocate of the doctrines of Arminianism in relation to salvation – as promoting a more consistently biblical view of salvation than the Calvinistic alternative – I have found the following acronym to be an accurate outline of FACTS, the 5 major doctrines of Arminianism, in contrast with Calvinism’s TULIP.

6. An Outline of the FACTS of Arminianism vs. The TULIP of Calvinism

by Brian Abasciano and Martin Glynn

Arminianism may be represented by the acronym FACTS:

Freed by Grace (to Believe)
Atonement for All
Conditional Election
Total Depravity
Security in Christ

This is the TULIP of Calvinism:

What is Calvinism and is it biblical? What are the five points of Calvinism?

Total depravity

Unconditional election

Limited atonement

Irresistible grace

Perseverance of the saints

7. Recommended

See my further articles on election and predestination:

I recommend these other articles:

J C Thibodaux, Society of Evangelical Arminians, Double-Talk From a Double Predestinarian;
Roger Olson, My Biggest Problem with Calvin/Calvinism’;
Roger Olson, What I Mean When I Say I am “Against Calvinism”;

8. Works consulted

Abasciano, B 2013. The FACTS of salvation, F: Freed to believe by God’s grace (online), November 6. Society of Evangelical Arminians. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/the-facts-of-salvationf-freed-to-believe-by-gods-grace/ (Accessed 13 December 2013).

Arminius, J 1977a The writings of James Arminius, vol 1 (online). Tr by J Nichols & W R Bagnall. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL). Available at: Works of James Arminius, Vol. 1 – Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Accessed 11 December 2013).

Arminius, J 1977b The writings of James Arminius, vol 2 (online). Tr by J Nichols & W R Bagnall. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL). Available at: Works of James Arminius, Vol. 2 – Christian Classics Ethereal Library (Accessed 11 December 2013).

Boettner, L 1932. The reformed doctrine of predestination. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.

Calvin, J 1960. Calvin: Institutes of the Christian religion, in two volumes, Tr by F L Battles, J T McNeill (ed). Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.

Carson, D A 1981. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility: Biblical perspectives in tension. Atlanta: John Knox (New Foundations Theological Library).

Geisler, N 2003. Systematic theology: God, creation, vol 2. Minneapolis, Minnesota: BethanyHouse.

Houdmann, S M 2013. What is double predestination? (online) GotQuestions.org. Available at: http://www.gotquestions.org/double-predestination.html (Accessed 12 December 2013).

Picirilli, R E 2000. Foreknowledge, freedom, and the future (online). Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 43/2, June. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/files/Picirilli.%20Foreknowledge,%20Freedom,%20and%20the%20Future.pdf (Accessed 13 December 2013).

Plumer, W S 1867/1975. Psalms: A critical and expository commentary with doctrinal and practical remarks. Edinburgh/ Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust.

Schooley, K 2013. One Arminian’s perspective on election, God’s foreknowledge, and free will (online), Society of Evangelical Arminians, 13 February. Available at: http://evangelicalarminians.org/one-arminians-perspective-on-election-gods-foreknowledge-and-free-will/ (Accessed 13 December 2013).

Thiessen, H C 1949. Introductory lectures in systematic theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.[21]

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Soteriology, ‘Does God hate anyone?’ Skala#1, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7792201-3/#post64655240 (Accessed 12 December 2013)

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., OzSpen #5.

[4] Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘The effects of limited atonement’, OzSpen #21, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7791291-3/#post64646749 (Accessed 12 December 2013).

[5] ‘Does God hate anyone?’ Skala #7, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7792201/ (Accessed 12 December 2013).

[6] Ibid., OzSpen #25.

[7] Ibid., Skala #27.

[8] Ibid., OzSpen #28.

[9] Ibid., Skala #30, emphasis in original.

[10] Ibid., OzSpen #31.

[11] Ibid., Skala #32.

[12] Ibid., OzSpen #33.

[13] Ibid., Skala #32.

[14] Ibid., OzSpen #33.

[15] Ibid., Skala #32.

[16] Ibid., OzSpen #33.

[17] This section is based on Thiessen (1949:155).

[18] This is based on Thiessen (1949:155-156).

[19] Almost any introductory philosophy text will provide a discussion of the difference between determinism, indeterminism, and compatibilism. See Emmett Barcalow, Open Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1992), chapter 5, for example. For “self-determinism” as the preferable term, see Richard Taylor, “Freedom and Determinism,” in Philosophy: The Basic Issues (ed. Klemke, Kline, and Hollinger; 2d ed.; New York: St. Martin’s, 1986) 115–125.

[20] For a recent example, see Brian Leftow, Time and Eternity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).

[21] This is in a revised edition (2006) by Eerdmans, but its Arminian emphasis has been Calvinised. I do not recommend the later edition is one wants Thiessen’s lucid exposition. Thiessen died on July 25, 1947, before the original publication of h is lectures, at the age of 64. See Thiessen and Determinism’s cold and chilling effects (Accessed 12 December 2013).

Acts 17:18, Unbelievers and the apostle Paul’s preaching[1]

Street Preacher

(image courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

I find it distracting when I see the lengths to which some Calvinists will go to try to demonstrate their theologies of unconditional election, limited atonement (particular redemption) and irresistible grace (the ULI of TULIP).

Is the Gospel to be preached to all sinners or only to the elect?

Here is an example where a Calvinist on Christian Forums wrote: ‘He [Paul] didn’t preach to unbelievers. He witnessed to them. Find in Acts where he presented the gospel in the manner that you suggest’.[2]

I was asked by an Arminian, ‘Did Paul preach the gospel to unbelievers?’[3] Let’s go to the book of Acts for one substantive example.

Did Paul preach to unbelievers?

Let’s use Acts 17:16-21 as an example with Paul in Athens and provoked by its idolatry:[4]

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new (ESV, emphasis added).

It’s a BIG stretch of the imagination to say that there were no unbelievers among:

people ‘in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there’.
‘Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers’. Were these all Christian philosophical believers that Paul preached to in Athens?
Who would address this preacher with the question, ‘What does this babbler wish to say?‘ Are you telling me that a person who heard preaching on Jesus and the resurrection who was a believer would accuse Paul of being a ‘babbler’?
I am dumbfounded to think that a born-again, regenerated, atoned-for believer would say: ‘you bring some strange things to our ears’ with preaching on Jesus and the resurrection;
‘all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there’ were all believers???? That’s a stretch.

How would a Calvinist respond?

John Calvin Image

John Calvin (image courtesy clker.com)

It’s been my understanding that preaching is for believers. It’s the work if (sic) the preacher/teacher. Witnessing is what you do with unbelievers.

I also understand that these terms can be a bit ambiguous. So it won’t be a hill I’m dying on.[6]

The Calvinist’s persistence and dogmatism on Paul not preaching to the unbelievers is exposed by careful exegesis of Acts 17.

Paul did preach to unbelievers!

Therefore, I provided this exegesis:[7]He preached in Athens to unbelievers about Jesus and the resurrection, according to Acts 17:18.

In the portion I quoted from Acts 17:18, it stated: ‘ Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection‘ (ESV).
The Greek word translated ‘preacher’ (ESV) is kataggeleus, which is a masculine noun, based on the verb, kataggellw.[8] What is the meaning of kataggellw?

Therefore, it is incorrect to write that Paul did not preach to unbelievers according to the Book of Acts. The unbelievers knew he was proclaiming / preaching, and claimed he was ‘a preacher of “foreign divinities” – because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection’ (Acts 17:18). It is this Calvinist who is wrong by claiming that Paul did not preach to unbelievers in the Book of Acts. The etymology of the Greek words confounds that understanding.

Works consulted

Notes:

[1]This is my post as OzSpen #410, Christian Forums, General Theology, Soteriology, ‘What did Paul preach to the Corinthians?’ available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-41/(Accessed 23 November 2013).

[2]Ibid., Hammster #327, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-33/#post64529689.

[3]Ibid., janxharris #364, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-39/.

[4]Ibid., OzSpen #391, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-40/.

[5]Ibid., Hammster #395.

[6]Ibid., Hammster #394.

[7]Ibid., OzSpen #410, http://www.christianforums.com/t7787859-41/.

Did Jesus die for the elect or the whole world?

Crucify

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

If you’ve ever visited Christian forums on the Internet, you’ll see a regular stream of back and forth between Calvinists and Arminians on the extent of the atonement.

After my engagement in one of these (I’m a convinced Reformed/Classical Arminian), I wrote to a supporter of an Arminian view of the atonement[1] that no matter how many verses OT or NT we muster to show that atonement was unlimited, for the world, for everyone, there is a barrier that cannot be overcome. Those who have a presupposition that requires limited atonement, will constantly make world = part of the world. They will say that world does not mean everyone; everyone = some; all = many; you’re not taking the context into consideration, etc.

I cannot see any way through. When there is a presuppositional bias towards a certain theology, it is very difficult to move, even when evidence to the contrary is presented. This is what this person and I have found in this discussion with Calvinistic limited atonement (particular redemption) advocates.

I think we are wasting our keyboard skills and breath trying to convince limited atonement folks of unlimited atonement as I find that there is a solid rock theological barrier against Christ’s death being the propitiation “also for the sins of the world” (1 John 2:2) and Jesus was to “taste death for everyone” (Heb 2:9).

A Calvinist came back with the cynical and inaccurate reply:

Do you realize that if I replaced “limited atonement” with “universal atonement” and “Calvinists” with “Arminian” (and other references), it would make the same argument against you?

Just thought I’d point that out. I’m sure it’s some sort of logical fallacy, though.[2]

Then he took to my idea and made it into his Calvinistic perspective. He wrote:

I think you are wasting your keyboard skills and breath trying to convince unlimited atonement folks of limited atonement as I find that there is a solid rock theological barrier against “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” (John 10:14, 15 NASB). Or “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44 NASB).[3]

You might be saying as you read this article: But surely you have the same problem? You could say: You also have a strong, biased view that is as stubborn as the other person’s. That might be true or false.

I can honestly confirm that if there was an absolutely certain scriptural mandate that Jesus only died for the elect, I would be enthusiastically promoting it. However, there are too many Scriptures to counter the Calvinistic doctrine of limited atonement. I have presented some of this evidence above.

I recommend Ron Rhodes outlined reasons for rejecting limited atonement. See his article, ‘The Extent of the Atonement: Limited Atonement Versus Unlimited Atonement’.

Logical fallacy committed

What is a logical fallacy? Dr. Michael C. Labossiere has provided this explanation:[4]

In order to understand what a fallacy is, one must understand what an argument is. Very briefly, an argument consists of one or more premises and one conclusion. A premise is a statement (a sentence that is either true or false) that is offered in support of the claim being made, which is the conclusion (which is also a sentence that is either true or false).

There are two main types of arguments: deductive and inductive. A deductive argument is an argument such that the premises provide (or appear to provide) complete support for the conclusion. An inductive argument is an argument such that the premises provide (or appear to provide) some degree of support (but less than complete support) for the conclusion. If the premises actually provide the required degree of support for the conclusion, then the argument is a good one. A good deductive argument is known as a valid argument and is such that if all its premises are true, then its conclusion must be true. If all the argument is valid and actually has all true premises, then it is known as a sound argument. If it is invalid or has one or more false premises, it will be unsound. A good inductive argument is known as a strong (or “cogent”) inductive argument. It is such that if the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true.

A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts. To be more specific, a fallacy is an “argument” in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support. A deductive fallacy is a deductive argument that is invalid (it is such that it could have all true premises and still have a false conclusion). An inductive fallacy is less formal than a deductive fallacy. They are simply “arguments” which appear to be inductive arguments, but the premises do not provided enough support for the conclusion. In such cases, even if the premises were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true.

My response in the online example was:[5]

You have committed another logical fallacy[6] when you try to demonstrate that because Christ died for believers that he did not die for the ungodly (the reprobate, unbelievers, etc).

While the texts you have given demonstrate that Jesus laid down his life for the sheep, I found nothing in your two texts to confirm that Jesus died only and exclusively for those who are believers in the church.

We have examples of how this happens on a human level. I love my friend John whom I have known for 30 years. When I say that I love John, it does not say that I don’t love Monty whom I have known since 1978 and is a close friend.

We know that the NT teaches that God loved the world and gave his one and only Son for it (John 3:16), but the Scriptures also stated that Jesus is ‘He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world’ (1 John 2:2). God our Saviour wants all people to be saved (2 Peter 3:9); and Jesus tasted death for everyone (Heb 2:9). It also teaches that he gave his life for the church – the sheep (John 10:15).

Ron2

Ron Rhodes (courtesy ‘Reasoning from the Scriptures’)

Ron Rhodes provides further examples:

There are certain Scripture passages that seem very difficult to fit within the framework of limited atonement. For example:

Romans 5:6 says: “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” It doesn’t make much sense to read this as saying that Christ died for the ungodly of the elect.
Romans 5:18 says: “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.”

Regarding this verse, John Calvin says: “He makes this favor common to all, because it is propoundable to all, and not because it is in reality extended to all [i.e., in their experience]; for though Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and is offered through God’s benignity indiscriminately to all, yet all do not receive Him.”
Regarding the two occurrences of the phrase “all men,” E. H. Gifford comments: “The words all men [in v. 18] must have the same extent in both clauses.”

1 John 2:2 says: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” A natural reading of this verse, without imposing theological presuppositions on it, seems to support unlimited atonement.
Isaiah 53:6 says: “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6).

This verse doesn’t make sense unless it is read to say that the same “all” that went astray is the “all” for whom the Lord died.
“In the first of these statements, the general apostasy of men is declared; in the second, the particular deviation of each one; in the third, the atoning suffering of the Messiah, which is said to be on behalf of all. As the first ‘all’ is true of all men (and not just of the elect), we judge that the last ‘all’ relates to the same company.”

Theologian Millard Erickson comments: “This passage is especially powerful from a logical standpoint. It is clear that the extent of sin is universal; it is specified that every one of us has sinned. It should also be noticed that the extent of what will be laid on the suffering servant exactly parallels the extent of sin. It is difficult to read this passage and not conclude that just as everyone sins, everyone is also atoned for.”

1 Timothy 4:10 says: “…we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.”

There is a clear distinction here between “all men” and “those who believe.” Erickson notes that “apparently the Savior has done something for all persons, though it is less in degree than what he has done for those who believe.”

In 2 Peter 2:1, it seems that Christ even paid the price of redemption for false teachers who deny Him: “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves.” Millard Erickson notes that “2 Peter 2:1 seems to point out most clearly that people for whom Christ died may be lost….there is a distinction between those for whom Christ died and those who are finally saved.”

So I don’t fall for the line that Jesus died for the church so he cannot have died for all of humanity. Why? Because what this person online was perpetrating was a misleading logical fallacy that is called a fallacy of ‘biased sample’ or a ‘fallacy of confirmation bias’. Jesus’ death for the church and for all of humanity are solid biblical teachings. His teaching on limited atonement denies one of these biblical emphases.

How do you think he would reply to the above about the fallacy of biased sample? His response was simple: ‘And….you still completely missed the point of my post. Hopefully it wasn’t deliberate’.[7]

My reply was:[8]

You have committed a red herring logical fallacy with your response. Your comment did not address the content of my post. In addition there was your committing a fallacy of biased sample in the previous post.

I directly dealt with the content of your post from John’s gospel, dealing with Jesus’ dying for his sheep AND for the whole world, and demonstrated how you committed another fallacy.

You can’t tolerate it when I call you for your use of a fallacy of biased sample. So what do you do? Give me another logical fallacy – a red herring. This is used to divert attention away from the content of my post about the fallacy of biased sample to a topic that he wanted to speak on. But it leaves the charge of his committing the fallacy of biased sample unanswered by this poster.

I asked him when he would quit his use of logical fallacies so that we can have a rational conversation. I am not hopeful that that will happen as he is too committed to his unbiblical doctrine of limited atonement. He is not ready to give that up in his TULIP theology.

Let’s look at some definitions of logical fallacies that this person used:

Fallacy of biased sample

What is the nature of a fallacy of biased sample? The Nizkor Project provided this definition:

Also Known as: Biased Statistics, Loaded Sample, Prejudiced Statistics, Prejudiced Sample, Loaded Statistics, Biased Induction, Biased Generalization

Description of Biased Sample

This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is biased or prejudiced in some manner.[9]

The example I have been pursuing in this brief article,[10] was of a fellow who wanted to demonstrate that Jesus died only for God’s elect (his sheep, the church) but he excluded the verses that demonstrate that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. His bias is towards limited atonement, so he is determined to pull out verses that support such a view. His approach is one of jeopardy for his view because when it is examined against Scripture, we find two views presented:

(1) Jesus died for his sheep, the church, the elect of God, AND

(2) He died for the sins of the whole world – everyone.

When a fallacy of biased sample is used, it prevents the continuation of a logical discussion between two people.

What about the use of logical fallacies?

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (from Purdue University) made this comment about the use of logical fallacies:

Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim. Avoid these common fallacies in your own arguments and watch for them in the arguments of others.

I particularly watch for them in my own arguments but also keep an eye open for their use in the writing or conversation of others. I’ve noticed there are far too many of them used on Christian forums and I have called a number of posters for using them. Many do not like this tactic as it catches them out. It shows how they are avoiding engagement with rational arguments in discussions.

However, rational discussions are not possible when people engage in the use of logical fallacies.

There is another parallel fallacy that this person could be using, it is the….

Fallacy of confirmation bias

A related fallacy is:

confirmation bias (similar to observational selection): This refers to a form of selective thinking that focuses on evidence that supports what believers already believe while ignoring evidence that refutes their beliefs. Confirmation bias plays a stronger role when people base their beliefs upon faith, tradition and prejudice. For example, if someone believes in the power of prayer, the believer will notice the few “answered” prayers while ignoring the majority of unanswered prayers (which would indicate that prayer has no more value than random chance at worst or a placebo effect, when applied to health effects, at best).[11]

observational selection (similar to confirmation bias): pointing out favorable circumstances while ignoring the unfavorable. Anyone who goes to Las Vegas gambling casinos will see people winning at the tables and slots. The casino managers make sure to install bells and whistles to announce the victors, while the losers never get mentioned. This may lead one to conclude that the chances of winning appear good while in actually just the reverse holds true.[12]

Another has helpfully described conformation bias:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor evidence and information which already supports previously held ideas or beliefs. The human mind will trick itself into protecting currently held beliefs regardless of evidence….

Confirmation bias is comprised of two main behaviors. The first behavior is searching and the second is filtering or appraising.

Searching

When searching for information a person with confirmation bias will actively search for information that supports their currently held belief, think liberals hitting up CNN or conservative only watching Fox. This aspect to confirmation bias is all about filling up your time with material that reinforces your world view.

Filtering or Appraisal

Alternatively, the mind may also filter out information which contradicts the currently held belief. When appraising multiple pieces of information a person might favor their current belief over contradictory data. In this case picture a liberal rejecting anything they hear from Glenn Beck or a conservative rejecting something they hear from CNN.[13]

So the fallacies of biased sample or confirmation bias are the ones used by this person who was promoting Calvinism’s limited atonement while ignoring the Scriptures that disagreed with this perspective.[14] He seems to have deliberately chosen biblical information to support/confirm his view, to the exclusion of other biblical information that confirms that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world of all people.

Conclusion: Observe how people use logical fallacies

You need to know your product – the name and nature of logical fallacies – to be able to notice them in conversation, particularly in discussion or debate. When you see this happening, I encourage you to calmly and gently draw this to a person’s attention.

Why is it not possible to have a rational conversation with people who use logical fallacies? Simply stated: A logical fallacy is an error in logic so accurate, logical discussion then is impossible.

Norm Geisler & Ron Brooks put this challenge to us:

Of making many fallacies there is no end. For every right way to think there is at least one wrong way. The real shocker is that the wrong ways often sound more persuasive! This is the power of sophism. So as not to be trapped in the persuasive pit of these fallacies, practice in recognizing them is necessary (Geisler & Brooks 1990:115).

I highly recommend the Geisler and Brooks publication (see works consulted) and The Nizkor Project’s online site on ‘Fallacies’.

Works consulted

Geisler, N 1999. Chosen but free. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.

Geisler, N L & Brooks, R M 1990. Come let us reason: An introduction to logical thinking. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Soteriology, ‘If faith is a gift from God…’m OzSpen#316, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-32/ (Accessed 21 October 2013).

[2] Hammster#342, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-35/.

[3] Hammster#408, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-41/#post64342160 (Accessed 21 October 2013).

[4] The Nizkor Project, ‘Fallacies’, available at: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ (Accessed 25 November 2013).

[5] OzSpen#409, ibid.

[6] I received the essence of this idea from Norm Geisler (1999:75).

[7] Hammster#410, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-41/.

[8] OzSpen#411, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-42/.

[9] The Nizkor Project, ‘Fallacy: Biased Sample’, available at: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html (Accessed 21 October 2013).

[10] Hammster (see above).

[11] Jim Walker, ‘List of common fallacies’ (online), 2009, available at: http://www.nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm (Accessed 21 October 2013).

[12] Ibid.

[13] Logic & Critical Thinking 2011, available at: http://logical-critical-thinking.com/human-thoughts/confirmation-bias/ (Accessed 21 October 2013).

[14] Hammster, as above.

Did Jesus die for the sins of the whole world?

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

This discussion has been continuing since the Calvinistic-Arminian debates of the Reformation period. But it is alive and well today. There are a couple Scriptures that stand out as affirming an unlimited atonement (i.e. Christ dying for the sins of every person in the world). These are:

First John 2:2, ‘He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world’ (ESV).

Hebrews 2:9, ‘But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone’ (ESV).

A plain reading of the text indicates that Jesus death is the propitiation (to appease the wrath of God’ for ‘our sins’ (presumably referring to Christians) AND ‘for the sins of the whole world’. Unlimited atonement is the fairly obvious reading of 1 John 2:2, except if one is a Calvinist. Hebrews 2:19 states that Jesus ‘suffering of death’ meant that he did ‘taste death for everyone’. Does everyone mean all the people in the world or only a limited number? That is what is involved in some of this Arminian-Calvinist debate as I found out when interacting on a Christian forum on the Internet.

On Christian Forums, an Arminian started a thread and asked:

If faith is a gift from God exclusively to the elect, and not everyone is elect, then there are some people that have no access to salvation.

I want to ask, if I may, if the Calvinists here on CF agree with this statement?[1]

Calvinists condone God’s being selective and conditional

This is a predictable and accurate response from an Arminian, ‘Calvinists say that this gifting of faith is done so selectively and unconditionally; it’s got nothing to do with anything good or bad that a man might do, they say’.[2]

The response was unsurprising from a Calvinist: ‘That’s because there is no such thing as a man who is good or a man who does anything good’.[3]

God decrees all sin and evil

(courtesy ChristArt)

I replied to the Arminian:

The plot gets even thicker with some Calvinists.[4] Take the late Edwin Palmer, a Calvinist theologian, who stated that, ‘All the Five Points of Calvinism hang or fall together’ (2010:84). He continued, ‘To emphasize the sovereignty of God even more, it is necessary to point out that everything is foreordained by God’ and

although all things, unbelief and sin included, proceed from God’s eternal decree, man is still to blame for his sins. He is guilty. It is his fault and not God’s….
To emphasize the sovereignty of God even more, it is necessary to point out that everything is foreordained by God. Not only is God omnipotent, so that the nations are to him a drop in the bucket or as a fine coating of dust on weighing scales (Isaiah 40), but he also “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).
It is even biblical to say that God has foreordained sin. If sin was outside the plan of God, then not a single important affair of life would be ruled by God. For what action of man is perfectly good? All of history would then be outside of God’s foreordination: the fall of Adam, the crucifixion of Christ, the conquests of the Roman Empire, the Battle of Hastings, the Reformation, the French Revolution, Waterloo, the American Revolution, the Civil War, two World Wars, presidential assassinations, racial violence, and the rise and fall of nations.
In two instances, the Bible is especially clear in teaching that everything, including sin, is ordained by God: the selling of Joseph and the crucifixion of Christ (Palmer 2010:103, 100, emphasis added).

I find that that kind of statement about the absolute sovereignty of God’s foreordination of sin and evil, by Palmer, has horrific ramifications.

It means that every act of a reprobate in paedophilia, rape, violence of person-to-person, the Holocaust, the Gulag, Nero’s slaughter of Christians, the rape of Christian women fleeing Syria today by Muslim men at check points (according to Barnabas Fund) and every other evil act imaginable by individuals, groups and nations is attributed to the sovereignty of God in decreeing sin and evil. This is not only a reprehensible view – as I understand it – but it is not consistent with Scripture. How is it possible to harmonise Palmer’s perspective of the sovereignty of God who decrees all of the sin and evil in the world, with an appeal to the Scriptures? This especially relates to the character of God, his goodness and justice/righteousness.

See my article: Limited atonement conflicts with God’s goodnes

How would a Calvinist reply?

(courtesy ChristArt)

It was predictable:

If God doesn’t decree sin, that means sin happens for one of two reasons:

1) God is powerless to stop it;
2) God can stop it, but chooses not to, for no reason whatsoever. Since he didn’t decree it, it means he has no purpose for allowing it to happen. Yet he allows it arbitrarily.

Pick your poison Oz.

I’d prefer to say that God has a purpose for sin, and he uses it to accomplish His purposes, as he “works all things according to the counsel of His own will”.

So which do you prefer? #1 or #2?[5]

Notice his pejorative language to me, ‘Pick your poison Oz’. This flaming language does not help rational discussion. This was my response:[6]

There’s no picking of poison here. That’s a false and defamatory accusation. You don’t seem to be able to tolerate those, like myself, who oppose your view of God decreeing all of the sin and evil in the universe, so what do you do? You make a derogatory comment towards me of telling me: ‘Pick your poison Oz’. That’s horribly insulting!

Please quit your pejorative language towards me!

You don’t seem to be able to differentiate between God’s ordaining all of the sin and evil in the universe (your Calvinism) and God’s permitting sin and evil (my Reformed Arminianism).

John Piper (courtesy Wikipedia)

Roger E Olson (courtesy Baylor University)

See Andrew Wilson’s article, ‘Piper and Olson: Does God Ordain All Sinful Human Choices?‘ I endorse Wilson’s conclusion:

So I don’t see any biblical grounds for saying that God ordains all sinful human choices, and I agree with David Bentley Hart (and Roger Olson) that Calvinists often do not distinguish clearly enough between what God ordains and what he allows. (I’ve been asked in the past why I believe ordaining and allowing are different; my usual response is to say, “because they’re different”. When you use two words that have different dictionary definitions – “commanding, giving orders for” versus “permitting” – the burden of proof is on the guy who thinks they mean the same thing, not the guy who thinks they mean different things.) From where I’m standing, the Bible does say that God ordains some sinful choices, but it does not say that God ordains all sinful choices. And if that makes me a woolly, fluffy, Amyraldian, four point, lily-livered, half-baked, big girl’s blouse of a 1536 Calvinist, then so be it.

I recommend the article by Roger E Olson, ‘What’s wrong with Calvinism?‘ (Patheos, March 22, 2013).

Sea God's Will

(courtesy ChristArt)

The Calvinist, advocating God’s decreeing sin and evil, wrote:

If they deserve damnation, I fail to see how anything is wrong with that. He could have saved zero people and sentenced 100% of humanity to damnation, and been just to do so.

Further, your own view is censorious too, because God set up a stipulation for his mercy: belief. He didn’t have to do that. He could have saved everyone, but chose not to. He could have made the stipulation for salvation “be a human being”, but He didn’t. Thus, in your view too, He chose to be selective as to who He lets into heaven.

You act like only Calvinists beleive (sic) God saves some, but not all, when you believe the very same thing.

Please don’t come back and say that ‘none of us deserved anything from God’ because the fact, from a Calvinistic understanding, is that God discriminately, selectively, unconditionally, irresistibly, provides a limited atonement for some, but damns the rest and they cannot do anything about it because it is done ‘selectively and unconditionally’.

The fact that you think all men don’t deserve hell is noted.[7]

Note the invention here. Not once have I ever stated or inferred that I ‘think all men don’t’ deserve hell’. That’s a straw man fallacy that Skala invented to try to discredit me. It’s an under-hand, deceptive tactic that is absolutely false. I do believe all people who do not repent and have faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, will go to hell. Here are a few of my articles dealing with the existence of hell:

Torment in OT hell’;

Hell and judgment’;

Where will unbelievers go at death?’

Eternal torment for unbelievers when they die’;

‘Will you be ready when death comes?’

‘Refutation of the Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine of what happens at death’;

Immortality of the soul’;

Are there degrees of punishment in hell?’

I had written to this hot Calvinist who supports TULIP that it also doesn’t sit well with 1 Tim 2:3-4, AND 2 Peter 3:9. His reply was: ‘Your misuse of scripture (the way satan does) is noted’.[8] This is abominable, insulting, inflammatory language. He continued:

Let it be known that Oz and Janx do not think all men deserve hell.

I mean, you can tell this just based on their arguments and objections.

If you truly believed all men deserved hell, why would you object to God letting them go there without first trying to save them or giving them an opportunity to escape?

A judge does not have to give a criminal a “chance of escape” in order for his sentence to be just. He can just outright send the criminal to prison, because it’s what his crimes deserve.[9]

I was pointed in my reply:[10]

This is your invention about my theology. Thus, it is a straw man fallacy. We cannot have a rational discussion when you make a false accusation about my theology.

I DO NOT believe as you accuse that I do not believe all people deserve hell. What I do not believe is your unconditional election, limited atonement and irresistible grace from TULIP when it comes to salvation.

Please quit your false accusations about my theology.

I wrote again:[11]‘My own view is not censorious because I affirm 1 John 2:2 as an accurate reflection of God’s view towards the damned: “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world”. Please quit your false accusation against my view when you state: ‘The fact that you think all men don’t deserve hell is noted’. Not once have I stated that. I don’t believe that. You have created another straw man logical fallacy.

This is a rather typical Calvinistic reply to get around the content of 1 John 2:2:

John was writing to Jewish Christians.

He is the propitiation for our sins (Jews), and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (Gentiles).

Thus is does not mean that He is the propitiation for the sins of every individual. It is self evident that Christ did not turn away God’s wrath from every individual. Come on!

You guys need to take courses in logic. You also need to do a biblical study on the word “kosmos” (world). It NEVER means every individual. It ALWAYS is specific to a GROUP of men.[12]

My response to this was:[13]

I have taken courses in English language, Greek language, German language, logic and biblical studies.

Where in 1 John does it state that 1 John is written only for Jews? If that is the case, I’m out – because I’m a Gentile. Please show me from 1 John where this message only applies to Jews. John was correcting false doctrine in relation to the incarnation and he was writing to readers who doubted Jesus divinity because of the false teachers of a teaching like Gnosticism.

You have imposed on 1 John 2:2 a view that is not there, thus making it your eisegesis. You have read into it what it does not say. Your problem of hermeneutics would be easily overcome if you would be open to the fact that God allows human response to receive salvation. John 1:12 applies, ‘But to all who did receive him’. It does not say, ‘To all the elect who did receive him and were irresistibly drawn to him’.

Problem with access or lack of will

One response from a Presbyterian Calvinist was: ‘Someone asked what you mean by access. It’s not an idle question. Calvinists would say that the non-elect have just as much access to salvation as the elect. Our problem isn’t lack of access but lack of will’.[14] Another Calvinist’s response was: ‘Wrong! Jesus died for the Elect only. Therefore, the non-elect have no more access to salvation than Ishmael had to the covenant of salvation’.[15] It is not unusual on a Christian forum on the Internet to get that kind of response from a Calvinist.

Did Jesus die only for the elect or for the whole world? I replied[16]that his statement contradicts Scripture:

‘He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world‘ (1 John 2:2 ESV). It does not say t hat Jesus is a propitiation for the sins of some of the world, but for ‘the whole world’. To make ‘the whole world’ equal only the elect, makes language meaningless.

‘For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time’ (1 Tim 2:5-6)

‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God (John 3:16-18).

This is crystal clear: God loved the whole world; those who believe are saved and those who do not believe are condemned. ‘Whoever believes’ is God’s invitation. It is not, ‘Whoever believes and is in God’s unconditional elect’.

‘But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Heb 2:9).

Dr. Paul Reiter has summarised the Scriptural teaching on this issue. FOR WHOM DID CHRIST DIE? HE DIED…

For all (1st Timothy 2:6; Isaiah 53:6).
For every man (Heb. 2:9).
For the world (John 3:16).
For the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).
For the ungodly (Rom. 5:6).
For false teachers (2 Peter 2:1).
For many (Matthew 20:28).
For Israel (John 11:50-51).
For the Church (Eph. 5:25).
For “me” (Gal. 2:20).

A helpful reply

A beneficial, faith-building reply of edification came from a Calvinistic Presbyterian, Hedrick, who began by discussing John’s audience when he wrote 1 John:

First John isn’t Romans. There’s no sign of Jew vs Gentile in the context.

If you want to read limited atonement into this passage, it’s better to use Calvin’s interpretation. He see[s] “you” as the church he was writing to, and the whole world as a global view of believers throughout the world.

However I find the summary in OzSpen’s list, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780…/#post64319067, persuasive. The problem with these arguments on the extent of the atonement is that they take an individualistic view that is foreign to the NT. In the Gospels and Paul we have a cosmic view of Jesus’ activity. He has defeated Satan, and begun the establishment of God’s rule. At least conceptually, he has atoned for the whole world. That doesn’t mean that every individual is saved. But it means that in principle he has reconciled the whole world. Of course the Kingdom is currently the seed growing secretly, so not everyone is actually participating in the restored Kingdom. But at least in principle, there’s a complete, cosmic victory.

I would say that in the NT view, the extent of the atonement is cosmic, but with an understanding that individuals participate in it by faith. I think there’s a difference between saying that the scope is cosmic and saying that it is universal. Objectively, the Kingdom of God is a cosmic reality. Christ has won the victory. Death is defeated. But at the moment not all individuals are part of the Kingdom. That’s where election applies. God calls us. It may well be that he doesn’t call us equally. Certainly not everyone hears it. But this call is a call to participate in a Kingdom founded on Christ. In the Synoptics, we “enter” the Kingdom. It’s a thing that exists independent of us. John 1 reminds us of Gen 1. God loves the world, and is restoring or recreating it as it was meant to be. 3:16-17 shows both sides of the picture. God loves the world. Jesus came not to condemn anyone, but to save the whole world. But he who believes in him is saved.

I should note that John is also one of the books that at times implies some kind of election, though I doubt it’s double predestination. But for John a cosmic extent of the atonement coexists with election, and in places also with a view that “the world” is hostile territory.[17]

Another replied to the list (above by Dr Paul Reiter) of those for whom Christ died:

Great list, Oz. Here’s some more categories that Christ came to save:

For whom did Jesus come to save?

The sick, the lost, the poor, the unrighteous, the ungodly, and sinners.

Matt 9:12, On hearing this, Jesus said, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Are just the elect “sick”?

Luke 19:10, For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost. Are just the elect “lost”?

Luke 4:18, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. Are just the elect poor?

1 Peter 3:18, For Christ died for sins once FOR ALL, the righteous (Christ) for the unrighteous (humanity, all of them), to bring you to God. Are just the elect unrighteous?

Rom 5:6, You see, just at the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Are just the elect ungodly?

Mark 2:17, On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, butsinners. Are just the elect sinners?

Isa 61:1, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

If Christ died for just the elect, then reformed theology leads to universalism, because of these verses. That means the non elect are neither sick, lost, poor, unrighteous, ungodly, or sinners. So they don’t need salvation. And Christ wouldn’t need to die for any of them.[18]

Can there be any reconciliation?

Theoretically, yes! Practically, very difficult!

There are at least two issues here:

1. Both Arminians and Calvinists insist that they are obtaining their information from the Scriptures. Calvinists support limited atonement while Arminians support unlimited atonement. It’s an issue of hermeneutics (biblical interpretation). Until there is an open, honest examination of all of the Scriptures relating to the atonement, with both Calvinists and Arminians laying aside their presuppositions to examine the Scriptures as objectively as possible, I can’t see a possibility of reconciliation.

2. There is a propensity for preachers to follow the flow of the denomination to which they belong. I cannot see Presbyterian and Reformed denominations accepting preachers who are Arminian. I cannot see Arminian denominations such as the Wesleyan, Methodist, Nazarene, and some Pentecostals, accepting Calvinistic preachers in the pulpit.

Therefore a stalemate is reached. There is little movement in the Arminian-Calvinistic debate.

Works consulted

Palmer, E H 1980/2010. The five points of Calvinism: A study manual (online), 3rd edn. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books. Part of this book is available free as a Google Book HERE.

Notes:

[1] janxharris#1, Christian Forums, Soteriology, ‘If faith is a gift from God’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352/ (Accessed 18 October 2013, emphasis in original).

[2] janxharris#71, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-8/.

[3] Skala#77, ibid.

[4] OzSpen#78, ibid.

[5] Skala#80, ibid.

[6] OzSpen#84, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-9/.

[7] Skala#87, ibid.

[8] Skala#92, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-10/.

[9] Skala#93, ibid.

[10] OzSpen#95, ibid.

[11] OzSpen#99, ibid.

[12] The Boxer#106, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-11/.

[13] OzSpen#115, http://www.christianforums.com/t7780352-12/.