On his website, Arminian Perspectives, Ben Henshaw has a questions page at which he answers questions about Arminianism and Calvinism that visitors to his site pose in the comment section of the page. Here is a question from a man name Paul followed by answers he received now edited and updated:
Question:
Thanks for the time and effort you put into this site! I have a rather different question, but hopefully you can help.
I’m trying to make up my mind between Calvinism and Arminianism. I respect as sincere attempts to understand the scriptures, although only one can be correct, or at least closer to the truth than the other. It’s an issue I plan to read about from both sides before settling on. I’m leaning towards Calvinism but open-minded.
Surprisingly, the biggest barrier to me accepting Arminianism isn’t a particular section of scripture or question, but the inability to find good sermons/commentaries from that perspective. Here are some details.
I’m teaching through Romans in a small group. I love doing it, and I’m doing enough research that my time in Romans constitutes much of the time I can spend studying at the moment, and likely will for the next year. I’ve got some great resources, but all seem to be written by Calvinists. I rely primarily on two commentaries by John Stott and Douglas Moo and two sermon series by John Piper and Martin Lloyd-Jones.
Even if I were a decided Calvinist (and I’m not), I don’t like only reading out of only a single school of thought. I’d rather include alternate evangelical perspectives. What I’d REALLY love is to find a sermon series available on .mp3 that goes through Romans at something approaching the depth that Piper does. I’ve asked several friends/pastors, and no one can point me to anything. I’ve found some whole-bible series. Everything seems to approach Romans at a much more superficial level (10-30 sermons to cover the book – Piper took 225).
I don’t need someone to match Piper in length so much as in clarity, intellect and depth. I’ve been consistently told (primarily by Calvinists) that such teaching simply doesn’t exist in the Arminian camp. If that is in fact the case, I’ll likely be a Calvinist soon. But I doubt it is. Can you point me to a solid sermon series by a pastor who could match wits with Piper? I don’t want a lot of illustrations, but rigorous exposition. I’m also not looking for a “Why Romans supports Arminianism” approach; simply an honest attempt to unpack the message of the book.
(To ask my question, I realize I’ve subtly accused Arminians of having less solid teaching than Calvinists. I sincerely apologize – that is not my intent. I would understand if you would prefer to deal with this over email rather than on your website)
Answer:
There are a lot of good Arminian resources out there on Rom. 9. I am not sure, but I think there are some MP3’s as well. For me, the strongest view of Romans comes from the corporate election view. Dr. Brian Abasciano has written three books on Romans 9. He takes on Piper and his interpretation throughout his books (and in my opinion, soundly refutes him). He holds to the corporate election view and is probably the best advocate of the view out there. You can find his dissertation in digital form free online at The Society of Evangelical Arminians, which is basically his first book, but with more material (his first book is an abridged version of his dissertation). It is very extensive, but only covers Romans 9:1-9. The second book covers Romans 9:10-18, but that one you would have to buy (at the time of this writing, you can get the paperback version for around $46 and the digital version for around $37 from the link provided). The third book covers Romans 9:19-24 (Piper’s book on Romans 9 covers to v. 23), but that one you would also have to buy (at the time of this writing, you can get the paperback version for around $35 and the digital version for around $28 from the link provided). Abasciano has also written the chapter on Romans 9 (“Romans 9 and Calvinism”) in the book Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique. He also has an abridged, one volume version of his 3 volumes on Romans 9 coming out and is planning on producing a short, more lay level book on Romans 9.
In the meantime, you should probably read his articles dealing with Rom. 9 and the corporate view of election. I think that would help quite a bit. Below are some good links.
http://evangelicalarminians.org/Abasciano-Corporate-Election-in-Romans-9:A-Reply-to-Thomas-Schreiner
http://evangelicalarminians.org/Abasciano-Clearing-Up-Misconceptions-about-Corporate-Election
Here is a page with many resources about the corporate view:
https://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/corporate-election-resources/
For good Arminian or non-Calvinist commentaries on Romans, check out the commentaries by Craig Keener, Scot McKnight, Ben Witherington, Robert Picirilli, F. Leroy Forlines, Richard Longenecker, Michael Gorman, Vic Reasoner, Jack Cottrell, and Aaron Sherwood.
And here is a link to a page with many Arminian resources, including online commentaries and including ones on Romans:
https://evangelicalarminians.org/links-and-books/
And of course, The Society of Evangelical Arminians website (this site) is a great resource with lots of material on Arminianism and Calvinism and Romans. It actually engages with a lot of texts concerning Arminianism/Calvinism more deeply than most published works. It has a category and Scripture index. So you can look for specific passages. There is a bunch of material on Romans and Romans 9 there. Here is the Romans category link on the site: https://evangelicalarminians.org/category/scripture-index/romans/. And here is the Romans 9 category link: https://evangelicalarminians.org/category/scripture-index/romans-9/. Of course, some entries will be better than others. So you’ll want to look through them all. There are a bunch more category links for specific passages in Romans, so you might want to check out what is there. The category index is on the right side of most of the website’s pages below the list of recent posts. There is a drop-down menu of categories that can be used. But the categories are also listed out down the right side of the home page. One can also use control-F to search on the home page, and that will include the topical index in the search. Of course, there is a regular search box for the whole site as well, and that is also located on the right side of most of the pages on the site.
Many more resources could be mentioned, but that should get you started.
I also highly recommend Forline’s book “The Quest for Truth”, or the newer edited version of the same book (which focuses specifically on Calvinism and Arminianism), Classical Arminianism. Forlines interacts quite a bit with Piper on Romans 9 in that book, from a more traditional Arminian perspective. Here is my review of the book: https://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2011/03/12/classical-arminianism-by-f-leroy-forlines-book-review/
