Scripture quotations are from the English Majority Text Version (EMTV) unless noted otherwise. Introduction Romans 9 is a very controversial chapter, but it shouldn’t be. All through the Word of God we learn about all…
Corporate Election
The Early Church on Corporate and Not Unconditional Election
From William W. Klein, “Election,” in the Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Developments, edited by Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids, we learn that the New Testament authors, apostles, and their…
Brian Abasciano, “A Response to Thomas Schreiner’s Review of My Book on Romans 9:10-18”
Thomas Schreiner reviewed my book, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament in Romans 9.10–18: An Intertextual and Theological Exegesis for the online theological journal Themelios. His review may be found here. This is the response…
Why I Am An Arminian
Part VI: Convinced by Scripture
In this final post, I’ll look at the most important reason for believing any theology: why I think Arminianism is what the Scripture teaches. One thing that you may notice though is that I am…
Why I Am An Arminian
Part IV: Theology
I do not know whether or not you have noticed, but as I’ve been going, I am moving from my least relevant reasons to my most relevant reasons as to why I am an Arminian…
Steve Sewell, “Strong Argument Against Calvinism: Romans 11:7”
“What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.” ESV (Romans 11:7) Perhaps one of the strongest arguments against the Calvinist’s view of election can…
The FACTS of Salvation
C: Conditional Election
Conditional Election (the C in FACTS) [Cf. Article 1 of the 5 Articles of the Remonstrance] There are two main views of what the Bible teaches concerning the concept of election unto salvation: that it is…
William W. Klein, “Is Corporate Election Merely Virtual Election?”
This article can be viewed below on this page and is also contained in this pdf attachment (the pdf file retains the author’s formatting and uses footnotes while this page uses endnote style and has…
Daniel L. Migliore on Election as Corporate
The following quotes are from Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004). The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, states that by God’s secret decrees…
William Lane Craig on Romans 9
Here are some excellent comments on Romans 9 from Dr. William Lane Craig. (This is an excerpt from Dr. Craig’s answer to a question from an atheist, taken from http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6675.)
[L]et’s talk about Paul’s doctrine of election in Romans. I want to share with you a perspective on Paul’s teaching that I think you’ll find very illuminating and encouraging. Typically, as a result of Reformed theology, we have a tendency to read Paul as narrowing down the scope of God’s election to the very select few, and those not so chosen can’t complain if God in His sovereignty overlooks them. I think this is a fundamental misreading of the chapter which makes very little sense in the context of Paul’s letter.
A New Perspective on Ephesians 1 and 2
This post was originally published as the third installment of a series, the first two numbers being “The New Perspective on Paul” and “The New Perspective and the Development of Reformed Doctrine.” The background for…
Corporate Election Quotes
The following is a series of important excerpts from some of the best scholarly works espousing the corporate view of election. Taken together, these quoted sections give a very detailed description of the fundamental elements…
The Empty Set Criticism of Corporate Election
One of the most common criticisms that I have heard against corporate election is the argument of the empty set: if God elects a group what happens if there is nobody in that group. There…
Corporate Election Analogies
Baseball
I wrote on this analogy a couple of years ago, but it is worth repeating. For many, corporate election doesn’t make sense because groups, or certain kinds of groups, aren’t real entities. James White once referred to it as a “impersonal nebulous group” in his debate with Michael Brown. This doesn’t quite make sense considering that the group is formed through personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but I digress.
My point of the baseball analogy is that one can in fact elect groups, and have personal connection to both the group and to the members of the group in a way that makes sense. So I use something which is very familiar: the election of one’s sports team, in this case baseball.
How Coporate Election Works
As I discussed last week, the idea of Corporate Election is that God chooses a group of people, as opposed to God directly choosing persons individually. However, an individual person who is part of God’s…
The Foundation of Corporate Election
In many places in the Bible we are described as God’s elect, or God’s chosen. What does this mean? How does God choose us? There are a couple of different answers to this, but the…
Corporate Election
Reputable Arminian Steve Witzki has contributed substantially to the Wikipedia article on “Corporate Election.” Steve has helped to make the Wikipedia article an excellent source of information about this biblical doctrine.
Where Calvinism Gets Romans 9 Wrong: Who do Jacob and Esau Represent?
After posting my exegesis of Romans 9, I deemed a follow-up series of posts necessary to show why the observations made therein are relevant to the debate on the conditionality of election. Interestingly, I’ve had…
Cleveland Fans and Corporate Election
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. (Eph 1:4 – bold mine) There is much rejoicing in Cleveland today. Cav fans provide…
Brian Abasciano, “Clearing Up Misconceptions about Corporate Election”
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…
Recent Posts
Why Does There Seem to Be So Much More Calvinist Than Arminian Scholarship and Is Evangelism a Problem for Calvinism?
Roy Ingle, “When Do They Become ‘Never Saved To Begin With?'”
Video: “A Wesleyan-Arminian View of Election,” with Dr. Ben Witherington III
Mark K. Olson: Famous Sermons of John Wesley 13: Justification by Faith
