It’s the Sts. Secondianus, Marcellianus, and Verianus’s Day edition of the Friday Files, our weekly SEA retrospective. The articles and links weren’t always written by Arminians, so heads up. SEA members’ names are in blue. Posts are from the second week of August…
Last year! (2018)
- Eric Landstrom, “A Response to Phillip Tachin’s Characterization of Arminianism.” In Tachin’s article, “The Logic of Monergism and Synergism in Francis Turretin’s Soteriology,” he presupposes irresistible grace as the only consistent way to describe God… and therefore Arminianism is “inconsistent.”
- Christopher R. Cole, “Thoughts on a Conversation with Dr. Leighton Flowers.” Cole participated in a videolink discussion with Flowers on the issue of prevenient grace. How’d it go? Flowers responded to that post; Cole responded to Flowers’s response.
- Finney Raju, “Sin and Guilt in John 9.” There’s a big difference between the inability to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, and informed but willful rejection.
- Vic Reasoner, “Sin, part 2.” Part of the FWS Podcast. Reasoner wraps up his lesson on the doctrine of sin.
Five years ago! (2014)
- Roger E. Olsen, “Beware of Stealth Calvinism!” Claiming it’s only to oppose Open Theism, various church leaders try to change their churches’ faith statements to declare God’s knowledge is independent of human action and decision. In other words, it’s deterministic.
- Susanna Wesley, “On Predestination.” John and Charles Wesley’s mom on the Calvinist view of predestination… which makes God the author of sin, who even so punishes us for sinning.
- Howard Snyder, “14 Favorite Ways to Twist the Gospel.” And you’ll find these misrepresentations everywhere. [Careful you’re not teaching them yourself!]
- Dan Chapa, “Isaiah 5:4 and Sufficient Grace.” When ancient Israel resisted God’s grace, his complaint was, “What more could I have done?”
Ten years ago! (2009)
- Richard Coords, “Hunt Critiques Piper.” In Dave Hunt’s What Love Is This?: Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God, he critiques Piper’s contradictory statement about how atonement is in some sense universal… but not.
- A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy. Tozer’s book on God’s attributes. Kevin Jackson noted this quote:
God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, “What doest thou?” Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.” [Tozer, ch. 22]
- Phil Johnson, “A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism.” Johnson’s a Calvinist, but worries about the influence of “hyper-Calvinism” in his movement. [As he should; it’s the inevitable conclusion once you take his beloved doctrines seriously.]
- A.M. Mallett, “Roger Olson Hits a Triple Out of the Park.” Mallett really likes the stuff Olson’s been writing lately… but wonders if we’re not wasting our time on a misinformed minority within Christendom.
- Dan Chapa, “Friday Files: Whitby on Acts 13:48.” In Whitby’s 1816 A Discourse Concerning the True Import of the Words Election and Reprobation, he tackles the Calvinist interpretation of “As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
Links to visit!
So many links… and if you’re looking for more reading material, y’might want to check out those links to see what our members and other Arminians have written and blogged.
