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Justin Taylor, “A Conversation with My Favorite Wesleyan Theologian”

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Calvinist Justin Taylor’s post on, “A Conversation with My Favorite Wesleyan Theologian”: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/06/26/a-conversation-with-my-favorite-wesleyan-theologian/ Taylor talks about Calvinist John Stark’s interview with Wesleyan theologian Fred sanders. And in so doing, Taylor makes some of his own…

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Allowing is not commanding

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This reprint of a blog post by Randal Rauser, PhD is placed here due to his accurate reflection of the Arminian position on the allowing vs commanding controversy. Note that Dr. Rauser is not a member of SEA and does not necessarily claim an Arminian stance.

ALLOWING IS NOT COMMANDING

Over the last week I have heard on at least three different occasions claims made to the moral equivalency of God allowing x and God commanding x. The argument has been made by Christians to demonstrate that if I accept that God providentially allows evils like genocide and infant sacrifice, I should have no problem if God also commands genocide and infant sacrifice. The argument has also been made by non-Christians to argue that if I have a problem with God commanding genocide and infant sacrifice, I should also have a problem with God allowing genocide and infant sacrifice.

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Did Jesus Reveal the “Who” in “World” in John 3:14-16?

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Did Jesus Reveal the “Who” in “World” in John 3:14-16?

There is a lot of debate between Arminians and Calvinists about the meaning of the word, “world” in the NT, as it relates to who Christ died for. Calvinists believe that it refers only to the elect among the various people groups in the world. Arminians, on the other hand, believe that it means what it says, that it literally refers to every individual in the world, from Adam to the very last person to be born.

This disagreement has continued for hundreds of years, but I believe we have before us a unifying passage of Scripture that settles the debate. I believe Jesus Himself reveals who He is referring to when He speaks of the world in John 3:16. Before He states the beloved promise in that verse, He takes us back to the Old Testament where He makes a comparison between an incident that took place there, to the cross He would die on:

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Why Does One Person Accept Christ, While Another Rejects Him?

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Why does one person accept Christ, while another rejects Him?

Notwithstanding God’s prevenient, enabling and intervening grace, free will is reasonably the cause of the aforementioned divergence, and which certainly requires greater explanation, and I believe that there is one. However, the first thing that Arminians point out is Adam and Eve, because the equation of total depravity no longer applies in their situation, and which begs the question: Why did they choose the way that they did? Arminians argue that God presented them with the opportunity to choose well, and by choosing well, to form good moral character. The same matter of free choice also applies to the angels as well, pre-Fall. No issues of depravity applies to their equation either. It is to this point that Calvinists, even such as R.C. Sproul, state the following:

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Free Will in Heaven?

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Due to the contradictory and confusing nature of Calvinism, Calvinists often struggle to articulate their own arguments. So Arminians with whom they are in dialogue, are often found having to first unscramble their own logic…

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Calvin Taught Unconditional Predestination of Man to Sin and Condemnation

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As follow up to Roger Olson’s essay recently posted here (http://evangelicalarminians.org/Roger-Olson-My-Biggest-Problem-with-Calvin-Calvinism), it could be helpful to post some examples from Calvin (as a representative of Calvinism) that invite the sort of remonstration (= objection) made by Olson and other Arminians against Calvinism. Today we post a few examples of highly unbiblical and therefore objectionable doctrine from Calvin. Tomorrow, we plan to post comments from John Wesley in the same vein as Olson’s (but more forceful and fiery).

John Calvin not only taught that God willed the fall of Adam, but that He ordained it as well. Here are some quotes:

Again they object: were they not previously predestined by God’s
ordinance to that corruption which is now claimed as the cause of
condemnation? When, therefore, they perish in their corruption, they
but pay the penalties of that misery in which Adam fell by the

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Playing With Dolls

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A question that I was recently considering was whether or not God could truly love us if we did not have free will. Clearly He could care about us like I care about my grandfather’s jacket or my car, but could one really say that He loved us? I think the answer is both yes and no.

For context let us consider the kind of love that we are dealing with. In the Bible, it uses the analogy of marriage to define God’s love for His elect people. However, it uses the analogy of a parent and child to define His relationship with creation. When we are talking about free will, we are naturally talking about how God designed us. Therefore the parent/child relationship is at the forefront and so it is this kind of love that I am going to be addressing.

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