In recent years, many Calvinists have severely critiqued the altar call, claiming that it is an Arminian innovation designed to manipulate people into making a faith commitment. While many an altar call may indeed be…
Monthly Archives For May 2011
Arminianism, Calvinism, Open Theism & Universalism
Here are some thoughts of SEA members on the relationship between Arminianism, Calvinism, Open Theism, and Universalism. Sometimes Calvinists accuse Arminianism of being the stepping stone to Open Theism or Universalism, but is this accusation…
Atonement – Under Attack
[Editor’s note: This review is of the book, Gabriel N. E. Fluhrer (ed.), Atonement (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2010).] This slim collection of essays is rooted in the proposition that the doctrine of atonement…
David Pawson, “Grace: Saving, Sovereign, or Free?”
This is a good audio sermon on the nature of grace. UK preacher and teacher David Pawson preached a sermon on Monday, May 16, 2011, when he gave a good summary on the nature of…
Calvinism and Harold Camping
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…
John Piper: Are There Two Wills in God? A Response
John Piper’s chapter, “Are There Two Wills in God?”, found on his website Desiring God, and in the book Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), seeks to…
Is It Biblical To Say That God Foreordains Sin?
Calvinism teaches that: “God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeable ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” (Westminster Confession of Faith, Ch. 3:1) It doesn’t…
Wesley on Acts 13:48
At first, I wasn’t a big fan of Wesley’s interpretation of Acts 13:48, but lately I have come to admire it’s simplicity. Wesley doesn’t get into technical debates about passive vs. middle voice, disputes about translating tasso as ordain vs. dispose or discussions about reflexive meanings with and without the reflexive pronoun. He is just straight and to the point. Here’s the passage and Wesley’s comments:
The Freedom of God
“But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases” (Psalm 115:3 NASB). The Psalmist follows this declaration of the sovereignty and capability of God with the inferior and impotent nature of idols:…
An Examination of James White
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…
Augustine on Falling from Grace
The fifth point of Calvinism is Perseverance of the Saints. The Westminster Confession defines Perseverance of the Saints as: They, whom God hath accepted in his Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by his Spirit, can…
What is Reprehensible about Calvinism
According to The Oxford American College Dictionary, the word reprehensible means “deserving censure or condemnation.” While there are aspects regarding Calvinism which are orthodox, overall I find its analysis of God’s character, and at times…
Chrysostom on the ‘Drawing’ and ‘Giving’ in John 6
Chrysostom makes a great point. John 6:45 really helps explain John 6:37 and 44. God teaches and we learn, if we choose to, but some choose not to learn. Those that learn from the Father…
God’s Sovereignty by the Rules
by Roger Olson Some comments here are so good that I want to make them posts. I hope “Robert” won’t mind if I do that with his recent comment about God abiding by rules in…
Arminius on Grounding Election in Jesus Christ
That the Doctrine of Election is taught in Scripture is uncontested: “just as He chose [elected] us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph.…
Recent Posts
William Burt Pope on Inspiration as a Credential of Divine Revelation
Andrew Whitney Perkins, “Pauline Style and a Biblical Theology”
Mark K. Olson, “John Wesley on Life after Death”
Roy Ingle, “The Strongest Passage for Conditional Security”
