Sovereignty of God
Arminian Minute: Eye of the Tiger & Romans 9
Submitted by postpre on Tue, 07/20/2010 - 8:58amShare with us in a little humor over the importance that Calvinists place on Romans 9, with a revealing comment from John Piper for no extra charge :-)
Jack Cottrell, "PHARAOH AS A PARADIGM FOR ISRAEL IN ROMANS 9:18"
Please click on the attachment to view Jack Cottrell, "PHARAOH AS A PARADIGM FOR ISRAEL IN ROMANS 9:18".
Another Chilling Calvinist Quote
Submitted by SEA on Mon, 05/31/2010 - 8:17amThe sovereign God “decides who will believe and undeservingly be saved and who will rebel and deservingly perish.”
—John Piper, “How God Makes Known the Riches of His Glory to the Vessels of Mercy,” sermon on Rom 9:19–23 (February 16, 2003). [Quote taken from http://andynaselli.com/framing-the-doctrine-of-election ]
Did you catch that Piper claims that God decides who will rebel? And then, those who rebel because God decided they would, somehow deserve to perish for that God-caused rebellion? And this does not make God the author of sin?
We know that many Calvinists believe such unbiblical and seemingly heinous things. But thankfully, it remains shocking to hear them state it so plainly. Otherwise, perhaps we should Recover a Sense of Incredulity over Calvinism as Jim Leonard has suggested here.
David Pawson - Audio Series on Romans 9-11
Submitted by Kevin Jackson on Thu, 05/27/2010 - 8:03amHere is a good audio series on Romans 9, 10, and 11 by historian / preacher David Pawson. The series is not specifically about Calvinism or Arminianism, however, the subject of the nature of election is addressed, and Pawson comes to a solidly Arminian conclusion.
Pawson argues that Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans in order to address the problem of antisemitism among the Gentile Christians in Rome.
Arminian Internet Resources on Romans 9
Reviewed Commentaries Ranked One to Eleven
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4 |
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ANSWERING COLIN MAXWELL, A FREE PRESBYTERIAN IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Submitted by WilliamBirch on Thu, 05/20/2010 - 9:33amColin Maxwell informed the Society of Evangelical Arminians, of which I, William Birch, am a member, that he had "robustly . . . answered Mr. Birch's satire," entitled "Reinterpreting Cain and Abel: A Disturbing Satire." The following is my response to his response, Answering an Evangelical Society of Arminians Satire of Calvinism."
A Dialogue Between a Predestinarian and His Friend
A Dialogue Between a Predestinarian and His Friend
Out of thine own mouth!
The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Volume 10, 1872, pp. 259-266
TO ALL PREDESTINARIANS
1. I AM informed, some of you have said, that the following quotations are false; that these words were not spoken by these authors; others, that they were not spoken in this sense; and others, that neither you yourself, nor any true Predestinarian, ever did, or ever would, speak so.
2. My friends, the authors here quoted are well known, in whom you may read the words with your own eyes. And you who have read them know in your own conscience, they were spoken in this sense, and no other; nay, that this sense of them is professedly defended throughout the whole treatises whence they are taken.
Making God a Liar?
Submitted by Martin Glynn on Fri, 05/14/2010 - 9:11amThis was a question that was sent into SEA, and I thought it would be a good idea to share my thoughts on the subject more publicly. The question is as follows:
- If human beings have libertarian free will, it is within their power to make God a liar.
- It is not within their power to make God a liar.
- Therefore, human beings do not have free will.
The troublesome premise is probably the first one, so I'll explain what I mean. Imagine a scenario where God makes a promise to one person which requires for its fulfillment the cooperation of another person who is free in the libertarian sense (I take freedom in the libertarian sense to mean that in any circumstance, a person's choice is free if he has two options to choose from [acting or refraining from acting, for example] and his choice isn't coerced, and so on).
The Calvinist View of Foreknowledge Makes God the Cause and Author of All Sin and Evil
Submitted by SEA on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 7:27amOne of our members commented concisely and incisively in our private discussion group (slightly revised here):
In Calvinism God cannot see into the future. He only knows what will happen because He will make it all happen. This again leads to the inevitable conclusion that God is the cause and author of all sin and evil in the universe. He makes sin and evil happen just as He makes everything else happen. One cannot appeal to "secondary causes" because God must make them happen as well. God directly controls everything in accordance with His all encompassing eternal decree. Some Calvinists find the Calvinist account of foreknowledge compelling precisely because it explains how God can foreknow the future, while the Arminian account doesn't care so much how God can know the future, satisfied simply to affirm that God is capable of doing such things, just as He can create out of nothing, etc.
Is There Trauma in Sovereignty? A Response to James Swan by Brennon Hartshorn
Submitted by bossmanham on Thu, 04/08/2010 - 6:15amArminians and other Libertarians are concerned with determinism, the proposition that all of our actions are made necessary by God in some way. We are concerned because determinism seems to make God the author of sin.
The compatibilist wants to show that we can still be free and responsible for our own actions and they can be determined. David Hume, a skeptic philosopher, tried to show this is the case on a naturalistic framework. Theist determinists adopt some of Hume's arguments and augment them in order to argue that it is possible that all our actions have been pre-determined, but we freely do those actions and are therefore responsible for them. There have also been other attempts at trying to show that this is possible.
