Society of Evangelical Arminians

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.

Some emphasize the fact that eternal life is eternal. It is claimed that if we could forfeit salvation, eternal life would then cease to be eternal. This fails to recognize the important truth that there is no eternal life outside of Christ (John 1:4; 5:26; 6:35; 11:25; 14:6; 1 John 1:2; 5:11; Col. 3:3, 4; 2 Pet, 1:4), and we share in his life only as we remain in Him through saving faith (those "believing" in this passage). Eternal life does not cease to be eternal if we fail to continue in saving faith, we will simply cease to participate in the eternal life which resides only in the Son of God. Eternal life will continue on just fine without us, if we fail to meet the condition of faith.

Related Fallacies:
Equivocation

One of the most common criticisms that I have heard against corporate election is the argument of the empty set: if God elects a group what happens if there is nobody in that group.

There are a number of problems with this argument. First of all, the group isn't empty, so the question is moot. This isn't something which God generally does, but something which He has done once (with some redactions as history has progressed). These kinds of hypotheticals are only really worth considering if alternative possibilities are possible. But God isn't going to choose another people, so why worry about what would happen if God's chosen people had no people in it?

Baseball

I wrote on this analogy a couple of years ago, but it is worth repeating. For many, corporate election doesn't make sense because groups, or certain kinds of groups, aren't real entities. James White once referred to it as a "impersonal nebulous group" in his debate with Michael Brown. This doesn't quite make sense considering that the group is formed through personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but I digress.

My point of the baseball analogy is that one can in fact elect groups, and have personal connection to both the group and to the members of the group in a way that makes sense. So I use something which is very familiar: the election of one's sports team, in this case baseball.

We at SEA truly appreciated the sentiment of this article by Dustin Neely: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/05/21/4-ways-to-fight-clean-over-doctrine/. We hope everyone could agree that in this debate we are all Christians and we need to treat each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord.

As I discussed last week, the idea of Corporate Election is that God chooses a group of people, as opposed to God directly choosing persons individually. However, an individual person who is part of God's chosen people can still be considered chosen. I'll get to that in a bit. First, I want to talk about how God forms His people.

Baresh*

Let's start at the beginning. God's people first formed around the person of Abraham. God said to him, "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." (Genesis 12:2 ESV) It is important to note that God chose the group before there was a group. Indeed, the group isn't formed based off of the merit of the individuals within the group, but based off of their relationship to Abraham.

In many places in the Bible we are described as God's elect, or God's chosen. What does this mean? How does God choose us? There are a couple of different answers to this, but the one which I have become convinced of is called "corporate election".

The first principle of understanding election that I use is that it needs to be grounded in the OT. The NT doesn't develop the idea of election very much. Romans deals with the topic with the most depth, and even then it is couched in OT references and theology. Besides, my basic hermeneutic is to understand the NT from a worldview contructed from the OT. So we must start where the Bible starts: the OT.

Reputable Arminian Steve Witzki has contributed substantially to the Wikipedia article on “Corporate Election.” Steve has helped to make the Wikipedia article an excellent source of information about this biblical doctrine.

Regarding origins...in other of whether something comes from God or from man, note what John Calvin said about the *origin* of Paul's expression of emotion towards his fellow Jews at Romans 9:1-3:

John Calvin comments: “It is no objection that he knew that his salvation was founded on the election of God, which cannot by any means fail. The more passionate emotions plunge impetuously on, without heed or regard for anything but the object on which they are fixed. Paul, therefore, did not add the election of God to his prayer, but put it out of mind, and gave all his attention on the salvation of the Jews.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Romans and Thessalonians, p.192)

Romans 8:35-39

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For you sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Brian Abasciano’s response to a review of his book on Romans 9:10-18

by Roger E. Olson, PhD

I don’t normally do this at my blog, but friend Brian Abasciano of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical Arminian, has written an important book on Romans 9-11 from an Arminian perspective. An early review appears to misrepresent some ideas of the book and Brian has asked me to post his response here. If you know someone who has read the review in question, please see that they read Brian’s response.

Here is the response:

Having examined the primary passages that teach apostasy we now examine the passages that the advocates of unconditional eternal security believe clearly support their doctrine:

John 10:27-29

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

How Prevenient Grace Shapes Our Missional Presence

Written by Andrew Dragos

In his sermon, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation” John Wesley spelled out a principle that underlies one of his most important theological themes. “Since God works therefore you can work,” and “God works therefore you must work.” Although in context it offers commentary on the work of sanctification found in Phil. 2:12-13, it is a helpful way of viewing the nature of prevenient grace as understood by Wesley (John 5:17). Prevenient grace is the work of a God who refused to simply allow the world he created to continue on its destructive path, and so blesses humanity both with the ability and task of doing good here on earth.

1 John 2:18-19

Little children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that the Anti-Christ is coming, even now many anti-christs have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be manifest, that none of them were of us.

I was confused about something Arminius said in his response to Perkins so I looked it up in the original Latin. Turns out it was a mistranslation.

Greg Boyd: It's a possibility that the chicken crossed the road.

Rick Warren: The chicken was purpose driven.

Mark Driscoll: The chicken crossed because of the rooster's leadership.

Rachel Held Evans: We're talking about chickens here, not pigs.

Pelagius: Because the chicken was able to.

John Piper: God decreed the event to maximize his glory.

Irenaeus: The glory of God is the chicken fully alive.

C.S. Lewis: If a chicken finds itself with a desire that nothing on this side can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that it was created for the other side.

Billy Graham: The chicken was surrendering all.

Pluralist: The chicken took one of many equally valid roads.

Universalist: All chickens cross the road.

Recent responses to Against Calvinism

By Roger E. Olson, PhD

Here I post two e-mails that typify responses I’ve received from individuals about Against Calvinism.

I’m not going to comment on them, just reproduced them here. I’ll let you, my faithful readers, decide what you think and comment on them. I’ve removed anything that would identify their authors.

Arminians and Calvinists define some theological terms differently. This has a tendency to cause us to talk past each other when discussing theological issues. Here are some of the words that Arminians and Calvinists have different meanings for:

Decree
Arminians - A plan of God to establish parameters for the way something will work. For example, God can decree for humans to have and make decisions.
Calvinists - A plan of God to cause things to happen in a predetermined way.

Election
Arminians - God chooses Christ. Those who follow Christ benefit from his election.¹
Calvinists - God unconditionally chooses certain individuals to be saved. The chosen are elected.

Faith
Arminians - Faith means to trust God. Because of God's drawing grace, it is possible for each person to trust God.

The following is from Dr. Jack Cottrell. While he is neither a member of SEA or a self-declared Arminian, his thoughts on Ephesians 1 are very insightful.

QUESTION: Calvinists say that Ephesians 1:1-11 clearly establishes the absolute and all-inclusive sovereignty of God, including the unconditional predestination of the elect to salvation. How do you interpret this text?

ANSWER: A right understanding of Ephesians 1:1-11 begins with the recognition that God's purpose for Israel was from the beginning limited to preparing for the coming of the Messiah, namely, for the incarnation of God the Logos as the human person Jesus of Nazareth. Once the Messiah came, it was God's eternal purpose to merge all believing Israelites and all believing Gentiles into one new body called the church. This is the main point of the book of Ephesians, and it is the key to understanding the often misused passage in Ephesians 1:1-11.

Below are some comments I made long ago in my perseverance series against the idea that the writer of Hebrews is addressing his warnings of falling away to those whose faith is not genuine, or describing those with non-genuine faith. My comments are followed by more recent comments by Scot McKnight against O’Brien’s false faith interpretation. The specific language of the warnings and the way the believers are described and addressed simply will not allow for the false faith interpretation. The writer of Hebrews is describing genuine believers who have fallen away from faith and salvation and admonishing those with genuine faith to endure less they too fall way and forfeit salvation.

From: Perseverance of the Saints Part 10: Examining Wilderness Typology

“Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study us and our ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.”[1]

Pretention and Certainty

“And you think your stuff doesn’t stink.” The adage may sound crass, but the problem it highlights is crass: pretention. There are few things more repulsive than pretention. The teenager who knows it all, the sports fan who has never lost an argument, the theology major who has unlocked all the mysteries of the universe. An hour locked in a room with any of the aforementioned persons is enough to make the strongest heart weak.

The purpose of this post is to define Arminian soteriology. Arminianism in general is the views of James Arminius. Of course, Arminius’ views span more then just salvation. They include the freewill of man, God’s providence, the entrance of sin into the world and foreknowledge. This post is specific to the topic of salvation.

I was going to write a second post on corporate election, but I am postponing it to look at something which Alan Kurschner has recently put out on Dr. James White's blog. He calls it a primer though it is more like propaganda. A primer for a debate should lay out both positions simply in the way in which the respective parties would approve. SEA has attempted to do just that with our own primer. However, Kurschner has absolutely failed in this regard. Indeed, I would suspect that this is simply supposed to poison the well for anyone new to the debate. So I am going to examine this primer to see how it really holds up to scrutiny:

"Now, the whole thought in prayer is to get the will of God like that done in our lives and upon this old earth. The greatest prayer any one can offer is, "Thy will be done." It will be offered in a thousand different forms, with a thousand details, as needs arise daily.

But every true prayer comes under those four words. There is not a good desirable thing that you have thought of that He has not thought of first, and probably with an added touch not in your thought. Not to grit your teeth and lock your jaw and pray for grace to say, "Thy will be endured: it is bitter, but I must be resigned; that is a Christian grace; Thy will be endured." Not that please. Do not slander God like that.

One of John Wesley’s finest contributions to theology was his understanding of prevenient grace. Broadly speaking, this is the grace that “goes before”—that grace which precedes human action and reflects God’s heart to pursue his creation. It testifies to God’s being the initiator of every relationship with him. While prevenient grace is an orthodox teaching held by the historic church, it becomes distinctly Wesleyan in its reach and scope. For John Wesley, prevenient grace is available to all, such that there is no “natural man” left in a purely fallen state without a measure of God’s restorative grace. Furthermore, prevenient grace is salvific in direction. This means the Spirit of God works not just to restore certain faculties of humanity or to limit human sin, but ultimately directs people to the work of Christ. This is one of the marks that sets Wesley apart from Augustine and John Calvin.

Roger E. Olson, PhD writes:

“Theodicy”–The attempt to justify the ways of God in the face of the problem of evil.

A friendly correspondent sent me this URL to an article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Naked-Truth-at-Stanford/131428/

The article is entitled The Naked Truth by Ron Rosenbaum (author of Explaining Hitler). It states the classical theodicy problem very powerfully–using an obscure line from an obscure Bob Dylan lyric.
In a nutshell, the author’s argument is that, in light of the holocaust, people must give up believing in God.

This question was once posed to Dr. Roger Olson, and I've been thinking it over: if I became convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God really did govern the way that Calvinists claim He governs, would I still worship Him? It is an interesting question.

First of all, I want to state that I agree with Olson that if God governs the way in which Calvinists claim He does, then He would be immoral by His own standards. I recognize that Calvinists don't believe that God is immoral, but they are simply being inconsistent on this point IMO. So my understanding of the question is this: could I worship an immoral God?

The answer is yes and no. It is important to note that worship is not simply giving thanks and showing affection. It is also veneration to a recognized authority. Because God is God, and God is king, He deserves that veneration; that worship.

This is a brief snippet from Dr. Roger Olson's post: "About judging God's morality"

Recently, an acquaintance asked me if I am guilty of “judging God’s morality.” He explained that his reason for asking is my answer to my student’s question, “If it were revealed to you in a way you could not doubt that God is as Calvinism says, would you still worship him?” My answer was “No.”

Apparently this response caused my acquaintance some consternation. I responded that I didn’t see why. He further explained that it seemed to him inappropriate to judge God. “But, I said, I’m not judging God. God is worshipful; I worship him. How is that judging God?”

I have noticed a new tactic from Calvinists—accusing Arminians of "judging God" (cf. Roger Olson’s post about this from January of 2012). But is that a fair accusation? Can we judge God?

First of all, we have to ask what in the world it means to judge God. Let's first take it in the broadest sense: Do we have the right to make a judgment about whether God is good or bad? Well, clearly we do, since the Bible declares God to be good, and calls us to recognize His goodness. Declaring God to be good is judging Him; judging Him to be good that is. So clearly we are allowed to do this.

Alright, well perhaps our Calvinist friends mean something different when they say judge. So let us consider the most restrictive/literal sense: a judge presiding over a court of law. However, this doesn't really make sense either since we can't really pass a verdict on God. At least we can't enforce one.