What Arminians Find Offensive About the “Doctrines of Grace” written by SEA member Roy Ingle Very often I read or hear Calvinism referred to as “the doctrines of grace.” I am not sure when or…
Calvinism
Calvinism and the God-as-Author Analogy
Calvinism and the God-as-author analogy written by Roger E Olson, PhD One of my faithful visitors here pointed me to the following recent essay posted to the Desiring God blog by one Joe Rigney (professor…
Contradiction Alert: Calvinist Scholar John Feinberg on Ethics
One of our members, named Robert, recently made some comments in our private discussion group about an interview that Justin Taylor did with Calvinist scholar John Feinberg, pointing out how they contradict Calvinist doctrine and draw on Arminian doctrine when they talk about ethics. His comments have been edited a little and pasted in below:
I listened to Justin Taylor’s recently posted interview with John Feinberg and heard some real contradictions between Feinberg’s views in the area of ethics and his views on compatibilism/soft determinism.
To set the stage, John Feinberg is a Calvinist who calls himself a
soft determinist/compatibilist and he presented the Calvinist view in
the famous PREDESTINATION & FREE WILL: FOUR VIEWS OF DIVINE
SOVEREIGNTY & HUMAN FREEDOM (other contributors included Pinnock,
Some Good News: New Barna Study Reveals that There Is No Significant Growth in Numbers Towards Calvinism among Church Leaders
For the past decade, the well known polling organization, the Barna Group, has been tracking the numbers of pastors who identify their churches as “Calvinist or Reformed” vs. “Wesleyan or Arminian”. The report of their…
Supercalvinisticexpialidocious
One of our memnbers commented that Bob Passantino was a great apologist for the Christian faith, extremely well read and knowledgeable, who died prematurely and that he was also an outspoken critic of Calvinism. Here…
Why I Am an Arminian, Part 2 of 2
This is the second half of a paper, the first half of which attempted to make a positive case for Arminianism. This second half deals with objections that Calvinists have traditionally made to Arminianism, and offers answers to those objections from the Arminian point of view.
Objections from Reformed Theology
The above outline [in part 1] of the Arminian position purposely makes its case without reference to the Calvinistic objections that have been made to the various points. A summary of these follows. (It should go without saying that this section does not pretend to give an orderly or complete presentation of the Calvinist position. It merely responds point by point to the Arminian position represented above.) Letters in parentheses refer to the acronym TULIP, and thus to the various points of “five point” Calvinism.
The Calvinist View of Foreknowledge Makes God the Cause and Author of All Sin and Evil
One 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…
William W. Klein, Review of *Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism*
Click on the link: William W. Klein, Review of David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke, eds. Whosoever Will. A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point Calvinism. Nashville: B & H Academic, 2010.
The Arminian vs. Calvinist Recall Notice
One of our members drew attention to a clever comparison of God’s offer in the gospel to a manufacturer issuing a recall notice. It struck me as Arminian in orientation. So, I thought it would…
Time Magazine Identifies “The New Calvinism” as Number 3 of 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now
That’s right. Lamentably, the Calvinist resurgence has made such an impact that Time Magazine has noticed it and diagnosed its influence to be even greater than we might have thought in its cover story for…
“Arminians Despise the Sovereignty of God”
written by SEA member, Roy Ingle I saw this posted on Twitter and have received this complaint before. The reasoning is that in Calvinism God is allowed to be sovereign so that all that comes…
Calvinism, Arminianism and Omnibenevolence
Calvinism, Arminianism and Omnibenevolence
This post was written by Randal Rauser, PhD
[Please note that Dr. Rauser is not a member of SEA and that SEA does not necessarily endorse all of his theological positions. We include this post on our site because we think it helpful in some respects.]
Arminians like to point out that according to Calvinism God elects some people to damnation. Of course some Calvinists try to soften this teaching by claiming that the election to damnation is a passive divine act according to which God simply “passes over” and thereby opts not to redeem these people.
Unfortunately this shift in nomenclature doesn’t really make the divine act of election to damnation passive in an ethically significant way. Indeed, it calls to mind James Rachels’ famous thought experiment on passive euthanasia so I’m going to borrow from that thought experiment to make my point.
Why Arminians Find Calvinist Conversions Offensive
written by SEA member Roy Ingle I had a friend of mine who embraced Reformed theology. He had been an Arminian for many years and then he begin to read various Calvinist authors such as…
8 Things Wesleyans Need to Learn from Neo-Calvinism
8 Things Wesleyans Need to Learn from Neo-Calvinism Although not a SEA member, Caleb Friedman makes some great observations for Arminians and Wesleyan-Arminians in particular. I’m a Wesleyan. Always have been, always will be. However,…
Jesus Says the Dead Will Hear Unto Spiritual Life
I want to recommend Chris Chapman’s article available at SEA called, The Extent of Spiritual Death. Chapman’s article does an excellent job of demonstrating from Scripture that the spiritual death described in the Bible does…
Amyraldism vs. Four-Point Calvinism
I’ve been musing about the idea of Limited Atonement, and there are a few posts that I intend to write about it. In preperation though, I would like to make a point about a distinction…
CALVINIST RHETORIC: Jargon
Or “The Obscenity of Obdurate Obnubilating Obfuscation” What I mean by Jargon If we equate any philosophical debate to battle I would argue that our basic weapons are our ideas and arguments, and our rhetoric…
Adam Clarke on Romans 7:14
Adam Clarke on Romans 7:14 provided by SEA member, Roy Ingle Romans 7 is a debated passage. It was here, in his teaching through the book of Romans, that Arminius differed with the Calvinists of…
Should A Pastor Be Fired For Teaching Calvinism?
written by SEA member Roy Ingle I saw a brief post the other day where a Calvinist brother was complaining about a pastor who was fired for teaching, in his words, “the doctrines of grace”…
Molinism, Calvinism, and I Corinthians
I just finished Dr. Olson’s book Against Calvinism (It is really difficult to find time to read when you have a one year old). In appendix 1, Dr. Olson goes over several attempts by Calvinists to protect God’s character despite their theology. One particular argument caught my eye: the use of middle knowledge.
Roger Olson explains:
Molinism… is the belief that God possesses “middle knowledge” — knowledge of what any creature would do freely in any possible set of circumstances. The creature may possess libertarian freedom — freedom not compatible with determinism and able to do other than it does — but God knows what he or she wold do with that ability in an conceivable situation. [Roger Olson, Against Calvinism, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2011), 184]
Recent Posts
Roy Ingle, “Calvinism and the Atonement”
Why Does God Deny the Opportunity of Choice for or Against Him to Young Children Who Die and the Mentally Impaired?
Mark K. Olson, “Wesley’s ‘Warmed Heart’ at Aldersgate – What Really Happened?”
Adam Roe, “The Crucial Thread of Prevenient Grace: A Wesleyan Perspective on Divine Drawing”
