Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Pet 3:18). Consider your joy in salvation. Repeatedly well-meaning, well-intentioned disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ justify their poor, worldly,…
Landstrom. Eric
James Arminius’ 20 Reasons for Rejecting Theodore Beza’s Supralapsarian Predestination
1. It is not the foundation of Christianity of salvation, or of its certainty. 2. It comprises within it neither the whole nor any part of the Gospel. 3. It was never admitted, decreed, or…
Eric Landstrom, “Thomas Oden’s Paleo-Orthodoxy”
12/09/02 “It is never too late to rediscover the joy of studying God.”1 Goal Setting “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.…
Eric Landstrom, God, Evil, and Grace in Calvinist and Arminian Theology
As early as Episcopius Arminians have argued that if acts arise necessarily from decree, then God must have included within his decree for the implementation of how to bring the decree to fruition. Popularly it…
Eric Landstrom, The Meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
As I sit in my office this Good Friday, the very day of the year that we remember as the day that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ made atonement for the sins of the…
Eric Landstrom, The Reciprocal Dynamic of Grace
A reciprocal dynamic of acting and reacting occurs in any relationship between persons. If we lived in a clockwork universe operating under Calvinist assumptions of predestinating decrees, then we would be little more than very…
Eric Landstrom, I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End
With regard to the broad discussion of God, and time, and the theological issues the subject broaches upon, such as how is it that God foreknows, a common Calvinist objection claims that stating God foreknows…
Eric Landstrom, Proof-texting Presuppositions with John 6:44, 65
Proof-texting Presuppositions with John 6:44, 65 John 6:44 and 6:65 are commonly used as proof-texts that more often than not reveal the exegete’s presuppositions that are imposed upon the Gospel According to John than I…
Dort, Synod of
Dort, Synod of (SYNODUS DORDRACENA), a national synod of the United Provinces, held at Dort (Dordrecht; Lat. Dordracum) in 1618-19. I. Origin of the Synod. — The opposition of James Arminius to the Augustinian and…
Eric Landstrom, The General Theory of Relativity and the Nature of God Pokes Openness in the Eye
It is argued by proponents of Openness as well as Calvinists that claim Openness is the logical conclusion for Arminianism that in order for people to be free the future must be somehow open. Their argument claims that if God’s knowledge of future unactualized contingencies is perfectly known, then creaturely freedom is a farce and whether we like it or not, our Lord has effectively predestinated all of creation. Countering the argument Arminians point out that simply knowing for sure that a person will freely do something is not enough for God to control or predestinate the world. This is because foreknowledge of an event does not imply direct influence or omnicausality, or absolute determination, but merely knows what other wills are doing. In other words, foreknowledge doesn’t mean absolute determination. Yet a fine point should be sharpened at this time: God not only grasps and understands what actually will happen, but also what could happen under varied possible contingencies.
Eric Landstrom, What Is the Purpose of Giving People Grace that God Knows Will Never Believe Anyway?
What is the purpose of giving people grace that God knows will never believe anyway? The Scholasticism By his antecedent will God wills that all people will be saved if they repent and believe, and…
Eric Landstrom, An Introduction to Sacramental Grace within the Wesleyan Tradition
Grace comes solely from God and is the uncreated energy of God. This uncreated energy can be understood as the work of God’s person upon the heart and soul and it is my belief that…
Eric Landstrom, Political Powerbrokers, Authority, and the Road to Dort
The Synod of Dort was a regional conference that was primarily motivated by political powerbrokers. Theodore Beza, John Calvin’s direct successor and first systematizer of Calvinism sent Arminius, the brightest bulb in the Calvinist box…
Eric Landstrom, What About Pharaoh? God Hardened Pharaoh’s Heart
What About Pharaoh? God Hardened Pharaoh’s Heart Some consider God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart as clear evidence that God predestinates people to reprobation and ultimately, to condemnation. The Arminian view is that Pharaoh, of his…
Eric Landstrom, Semi-Pelagian or Semi-Augustinian?
The term “Semi-Pelagian” is often bandied about by laymen as a summary term that is descriptive of those persons who follow in the Arminian and Wesleyan theological traditions. AA. Hodge defined the term, stating: Semi-Pelagianism…
Eric Landstrom, Adam’s Fall from Grace in the Eastern-Wesleyan Tradition
It is not within our capacity to say anything about God beyond what he has revealed to us. Sometimes it is best to step away from our presuppositions that we proof-text with the Bible and…
Eric Landstrom, The False Antithesis Between Monergism and Synergism: A Lesson from Historical Theology
A false division exists within theological discussions that centers on monergism and synergism. Within Reformed circles, on a lay level, monergism is considered to be Reformed orthodoxy and synergism heterodox to Reformed theology. However, this…
Eric Landstrom, Is God’s Knowledge the Cause of All Things?
There is a common argument that says God’s knowledge causes all things. It goes like this: If God foreknows that something (x) is going to occur, then something else (non-x) cannot occur. If something (x) does not occur, then God’s knowledge was false. Curiously since they make strange bedfellows, this argument is used by theological determinists like Calvinists as well as those holding to process theology and Openness against orthodox Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and orthodox non-Calvinist Protestants. The argument is used by theological determinists to show that God must determine all things before they come to pass and alternatively, by those who hold that God cannot know the future for free will to be actual and not mere rhetorical sophistry.
Eric Landstrom, What Are Those Arminians Thinking?
How does your perception of what is and is not Arminian theology dovetail into the following true story that relates to mans’ sin nature? The great Wesley scholar, Albert Outler was once giving a lecture…
