With regard to the broad discussion of God and time and the theological issues the subject broaches upon such as how God foreknows, a common Calvinist objection claims that stating God foreknows because he stands over and above time doesn't resolve their criticisms as to how God foreknows. However, in point of fact, the claim that God is over and above time or that God's perspective is timeless is a great way to conceptualize how God's foreknowledge works if we take our time and unpack a thought experiment for our Calvinist and Open Theist friends so they can understand what we mean.

This article defends the concept of corporate election against the criticisms that have been leveled against it, showing that they arise mostly from misunderstanding of the concept. It argues that corporate election is the biblical view of election unto salvation, which means that election unto salvation is conditional on faith in Christ. This version of the article has different page numbers and may have some other slight differences from the published version.

Please click on one of the attachments to view Brian J. Abasciano, "Clearing Up Misconceptions about Corporate Election", Ashland Theological Journal 41 (2009) 67-102. The first attachment has footnotes with 12 point font and double spaced. The second attachment is simply the same article with footnotes that are 10 point font and single spaced .

Posted by Robert (submitted to SEA on 10-21-09).

I believe that I have come upon an insight that, though very simple to understand, does a great job of unlocking the supposed problem of the compatibility of exhaustive divine foreknowledge and free will as ordinarily understood (i.e. the libertarian conception - having both the ability and the opportunity to do otherwise in the same circumstances). This insight, if valid, proves that there is no incompatibility between foreknowledge and libertarian free will.

Many people believe these two things are incompatible. Some Atheists have argued that if God foreknows everything then free will as ordinarily understood (i.e., the libertarian sense, where a person can do otherwise) cannot exist. As it seems obvious to them that libertarian freedom exists, this means that a God who exhaustively foreknows all actions must not exist.

Now available here online, John Goodwin's Redemption Redeemed may be the best defense of Arminianism ever written. Published in 1651 by the Arminian Puritan John Goodwin (1593-1665), it is written in seventeenth century English with a Puritan writing style, which can make for challenging reading. But it contains tremendous biblical exegesis. The patient reader will be rewarded with a powerful, classic, comprehensive, biblical defense of five point Reformation Arminian theology.

The book runs 740 pages and is made available here in eight file attachments. There is a table of contents along with the first part of the body of the book in the first file. Besides the last part of the body of the book, the final file also contains a Scripture index, a subject index, and a table of general rules for interpreting Scripture. The material is arranged like so:

File 1: Preliminary matter through page 78
File 2: Pages 79-173
File 3: Pages 174-268
File 4: Pages 269-363