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.
“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…
Posted on February 4, 2012 by rogereolson
Some Thoughts about My Conversation with Michael Horton
I spoke about why I am “Against Calvinism” for about 15 minutes focusing on the goodness of God and how classical, “high Calvinism” is inconsistent with any meaning of “good” and “love” known to us. Then Mike spoke for about 15 minutes focusing on humanity’s depravity and God’s mercy in electing some to salvation. In other words, he also said that God is good even if not in terms of our “fairness” (because he doesn’t save everyone).
I don’t know how Calvinists do it. Like many bloggers Justin Taylor posted an obituary of Steve Jobs. Unlike many bloggers, he receives comments. Not three comments in, the post got this one: Justin Taylor…
Eric Holmberg is a convinced and serious Calvinist who produced the Calvinist documentary “Amazing Grace.” In this article, he corrects Calvinists who write Arminians “off as necessarily ill-informed, stupid, deceived, heretical – or worse unredeemed.” Readers should be wary of Holmberg’s affirmations of Calvinist theology.
Harold Camping, the fellow who’s teaching that the world will end on May 21, 2011, comes from a staunchly Calvinist background. This, of course, doesn’t prove that Calvinism is wrong, only that one of its…
In the book The Potters Freedom, Calvinist James White sets forth a parable called “The King and the Castle.” The purpose of the parable is to explain why (in White’s view) the concept of “Limited…
Some Calvinists wisely warn other Calvinists about making Calvinism into another gospel. In one particular dialogue, the following conversation took place. Unfortunately, the entirety of the dialogue has been lost since the webhost had taken…
Three letters reviewing the sermons of S. Cozens; published in 1860. (link)
Calvinist C. Michael Patton recently did a post entitled Calvinism and the Divine Decrees – Correcting a Misunderstanding. In the post Patton argues for the Infralapsarian view of Calvinism. The infralapsarian view is a less…
In his book Almighty Over All (Baker, 1999), R.C. Sproul Jr. makes some controversial statements—ones that appear to be sub-biblical. What tipped me off to this was hearing a paper presentation at a conference in April in…
I have come to appreciate Dr. Olson’s perspectives on Arminian apologetics over the past few years. The Society of Evangelical Arminians recently posted a well written commentary by Olson considering Scot McKnight’s recent blog posts…
Calvinist Phil Johnson has said, “History teaches us that hyper-Calvinism is as much a threat to true Calvinism as Arminianism is. Virtually every revival of true Calvinism since the Puritan era has been hijacked, crippled, or ultimately killed by hyper-Calvinist influences” (http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/hypercal.htm).
Might this be because hyper-Calvinism is the logical conclusion to the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism? Perhaps regular Calvinism simply refuses to go where its own doctrine logically leads because where it leads contradicts the Bible so blatantly.
C. Michael Patton has written a couple of posts on the tendency of fellow Calvinists to treat Arminians in an unloving way. Here are some of the relevant posts: Calvinists, Let’s Calm Down (5-15-09) Calvinists…
This was the title of irenic Calvinist C. Michael Patton’s recent blogpost. His motivation originated from (yet another) e-mail he received from a Calvinist concerning the “heresy” of Arminianism. Patton, though a committed Calvinist, attends…
One of our members, well known Arminian theologian Roger Olson, has weighed in on the controversy stirred up by Scot McKnight’s recent comments about those he has labeled the “Neo-Reformed” (see our recent post about…
Distinguished NT scholar and non-Calvinist, Scot McKnight, has been blogging about the most troubling element of the Calvinist resurgence, which he labels “the neo-Reformed”. Here are links to his first and second posts: http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/02/who-are-the-neoreformed.html http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/02/who-are-the-neoreformed-2.html…
According to Monergism.com, hyper-Calvinism’s errors include the following: “that God is the author of sin and of evil, that men have no will of their own, and secondary causes are of no effect; that the…
The content of this post was authored by Ben Henshaw and is posted on his behalf.
I have recently been accused of being an inconsistent Arminian because I reject Open Theism. I find it interesting that Calvinists are so concerned with consistency seeing as how they both affirm that God causes all things and is yet somehow not the author of sin.
I admit that I love consistency. I reject Calvinism primarily because I find no support for it in the pages of Scripture, and secondarily because it is so internally inconsistent. I admire Calvinists who are not afraid to “take it in the face”, so to speak, and call God the author of sin. “Traditional” Calvinists call these types “hyper” Calvinists, but in the spirit of my recent conversation, I think it is more accurate to just call them “consistent” Calvinists.
People are often tempted to believe that there is some mediate option which will allow them to avoid the Calvinist/Arminian debate. This inclination comes from a commendable impulse — to hold fast to Scriptural truth…
