Arminians have a high view of God’s sovereignty, contrary to the caricatures and lies spread of us to the contrary. As a matter of fact, we think Arminians hold to a higher view of God’s sovereignty than do Calvinists, as I was reminded recently from my Arminian brother Johnathan Pritchett. The reason our view is considered “higher” is due to the following. For an omnipotent God, strictly controlling all people is easy and effortless. Like moving chess pieces on a chessboard, the movements are swift and carefree. The pieces move wherever the overseer places them without the slightest challenge whatsoever.
Providence
Do Calvinists Seek the Specific Will of God?
This was a comment made by Rebekah Reinagel in regards to the nature of prayer within the Calvinist system. She gave us permission to publish it here.
Calvinists pray, even though they “know” that God has everything decreed in advance. But here’s what I was wondering about: Do Calvinists seek the specific will of God?
And what I mean by that is that Arminians, in addition to following God’s moral law (i.e. Do not murder), also seek God’s will in specific situations in which it isn’t clear which way to go. For example, praying about whether to take a job or not. This presumes that God knows which is the better option, and it is an attempt to seek His will in the matter.
Arminius on the Repercussions of the Freedom of God
God, being free from necessity to establish the world in which we exist, freely entered into a covenant with the man and woman He created subsequent to their disobedience of the one command which He…
Assigning Responsibility for Sin: Calvinism and the Theory of Secondary Causes
The Reformed Assertion: “God can determine a specific outcome, a person can have no other option but to do the outcome, and that person can be held up to moral judgment while God is blameless.”…
Randal Rauser, “Do Arminians Have the Same Problem as Calvinists?”
Please click on the link to view Randal Rauser, “Do Arminians Have the Same Problem as Calvinists?” [Please note that Dr. Rauser is not a member of SEA and that SEA does not necessarily endorse…
How One’s Theology Dishonors the Glory of God
Difficult as it may be to fathom, aiming to attribute all things to the glory and honor of God through Jesus Christ has the potential to lead a person to dishonor Him. For example, should…
Sovereignty and Freedom
This was originally posted at True Paradigm, the author of which is not a member of SEA but has allowed us to publish this post. Please Enjoy. Arminians are convinced that God can be sovereign…
William Lane Craig on Universal, Divine, Causal Determinism
What objections can be raised against the Reformed view of Universal, Divine, Causal Determinism? William Lane Craig answers: “At least five come immediately to mind: 1. Universal, divine, causal determinism cannot offer a coherent interpretation…
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…
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:…
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…
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…
More On the Authorship of Sin
[Editor’s note: This post was originally posted at http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/, so any time references are no longer applicable.]
A few weeks ago I wrote on a fallacy common to Calvinist apologetics, namely, that they often claim that while they teach exhaustive determinism, they still claim that God isn’t the author of sin. It garnered substantially more responses than I expected. To clarify things and answer some common questions/objections, I’m putting together a synopsis of the relevant arguments (this is part 1).
Moral problems?
The Fallacies of Calvinist Apologetics
Related Fallacies:
Red Herring
Equivocation
“All I have tried to do here is show how clearly, succinctly and simply that Calvinism does NOT charge God with the authorship of sin and so (to employ the somewhat aggressive language of Scripture) to shut the mouths of the gainsayers. If any have a case against Calvinism, then let it be based on truth and not on falsehood and slander.” – Colin Maxwell, Do Calvinists believe and teach that God is the Author of Sin?
Colin Maxwell put up the page linked to above showing various quotes from prominent Calvinist sources indicating that they do not believe or teach that God is the author of sin. His point apparently, judging from the content and page’s title, is to stop non-Calvinists from ‘slandering’ them by claiming they teach such a thing.
Problems with this logic
Dr. Kyle Roberts, “Tsunamis: Or, Why I’m No Longer a Calvinist”
Dr. Kyle Roberts, “Tsunamis: Or, Why I’m No Longer a Calvinist” Kyle Roberts is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Lead Faculty of Christian Thought, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN).
The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart
The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that…
James Arminius On the One Will of God
There is a connection between the Understanding of God and His Will that is overlooked or neglected by those who hold to a two wills in God theory. In this post we will discover what Arminius believed about God’s Knowledge or Understanding, and its relation to the one Will of God, with its various distinctives.
THE UNDERSTANDING OF GOD
The Theological Fatalist’s Modal Fallacy
Theological fatalists posit that God’s foreknowledge of future events mean that it is not possible for anything other than what happens to happen. Since God knows every event that will happen, then aren’t those events…
Arminius on the Sovereignty and Providence of God concerning the Problem of Evil
Arminius comments:
- We have already said that in sin the act, or the cessation from action, and ‘the transgression of the law’ come under consideration: But the Efficiency of God about evil concerns both the act itself and its viciousness, and it does this whether we have regard to the beginning of sin, to its progress, or to its end and consummation.1
What Arminius is trying to avoid is the constructing of his exegetical theology which is free from charging or making God the author of sin. What does it mean to make God the author of sin? First, let us define sin. The Larger Catechism states that sin is “any want [lack] of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.”2 This definition works as well as any other.
