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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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…
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
This post is from the blog of Roger E. Olson, PhD written by Austin Fischer Neo-Calvinism Preaching My Conversion…to Calvinism I was converted to Calvinism because of the preaching of John Piper. I was in…
New Research On the Level of Calvinism vs. Arminianism in the SBC: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2012/06/new_research_su.html
A Christianity Today article: Weston Gentry, “As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation: Hundreds, including seminary presidents, have signed a statement on salvation criticized by both Reformed and Arminian theologians.” Here…
By Roger E. Olson, PhD The recent “dust up” over possible semi-Pelagianism among certain Baptists has given rise to the usual confusion about terms like “heresy” and “heretic.” So let’s clear things up a little…
This book follows “Paul’s Use of the Old Testament in Romans 9:1-9: An Intertextual and Theological Exegesis” as Dr. Abasciano dives deeper into Romans 9 by examining 9:10-18. (link to Amazon) The work is organized,…
SO WHAT IS FAITH ANYWAY? by Matt O’Reilly, PhD (Cand) You no longer have to go to church to hear about faith. We are constantly surrounded with talk of faith and belief. From Hollywood to…
In this paper, originally presented at the Wesleyan Theological Society Conference, Josh Ratliff examines the doctrine of prevenient grace based on a New Testament theological method. He asks whether prevenient grace is salvifically sufficient or…
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.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Some emphasize the fact that eternal life…
Related Fallacies:
Equivocation
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…
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.
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…
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…
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.
Regarding origins…in other of whether something comes from God or from man, note what John Calvin said about the *origin* of Paul’s expression of emotion towards his fellow Jews at Romans 9:1-3: John Calvin comments:…
Romans 8:35-39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For you sake we face death…
Brian Abasciano’s response to a review of his book on Romans 9:10-18
by Roger E. Olson, PhD
I don’t normally do this at my blog, but friend Brian Abasciano of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, a leading evangelical Arminian, has written an important book on Romans 9-11 from an Arminian perspective. An early review appears to misrepresent some ideas of the book and Brian has asked me to post his response here. If you know someone who has read the review in question, please see that they read Brian’s response.
Here is the response: