Having examined the primary passages that teach apostasy we now examine the passages that the advocates of unconditional eternal security believe clearly support their doctrine: John 10:27-29 My sheep listen to my voice; I know…
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Having examined the primary passages that teach apostasy we now examine the passages that the advocates of unconditional eternal security believe clearly support their doctrine: John 10:27-29 My sheep listen to my voice; I know…
How Prevenient Grace Shapes Our Missional Presence
Written by Andrew Dragos
In his sermon, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation” John Wesley spelled out a principle that underlies one of his most important theological themes. “Since God works therefore you can work,” and “God works therefore you must work.” Although in context it offers commentary on the work of sanctification found in Phil. 2:12-13, it is a helpful way of viewing the nature of prevenient grace as understood by Wesley (John 5:17). Prevenient grace is the work of a God who refused to simply allow the world he created to continue on its destructive path, and so blesses humanity both with the ability and task of doing good here on earth.
1 John 2:18-19
Little children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that the Anti-Christ is coming, even now many anti-christs have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be manifest, that none of them were of us.
I was confused about something Arminius said in his response to Perkins so I looked it up in the original Latin. Turns out it was a mistranslation. In the former case [the creation of animals,…
Greg Boyd: It’s a possibility that the chicken crossed the road.
Rick Warren: The chicken was purpose driven.
Mark Driscoll: The chicken crossed because of the rooster’s leadership.
Rachel Held Evans: We’re talking about chickens here, not pigs.
Pelagius: Because the chicken was able to.
John Piper: God decreed the event to maximize his glory.
Irenaeus: The glory of God is the chicken fully alive.
C.S. Lewis: If a chicken finds itself with a desire that nothing on this side can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that it was created for the other side.
Billy Graham: The chicken was surrendering all.
Pluralist: The chicken took one of many equally valid roads.
Universalist: All chickens cross the road.
Recent responses to Against Calvinism
By Roger E. Olson, PhD
Here I post two e-mails that typify responses I’ve received from individuals about Against Calvinism.
I’m not going to comment on them, just reproduced them here. I’ll let you, my faithful readers, decide what you think and comment on them. I’ve removed anything that would identify their authors.
Arminians and Calvinists define some theological terms differently. This has a tendency to cause us to talk past each other when discussing theological issues. Here are some of the words that Arminians and Calvinists have different meanings for:
Decree
Arminians – A plan of God to establish parameters for the way something will work. For example, God can decree for humans to have and make decisions.
Calvinists – A plan of God to cause things to happen in a predetermined way.
Election
Arminians – God chooses Christ. Those who follow Christ benefit from his election.1
Calvinists – God unconditionally chooses certain individuals to be saved. The chosen are elected.
Faith
Arminians – Faith means to trust God. Because of God’s drawing grace, it is possible for each person to trust God.
The following is from Dr. Jack Cottrell. While he is neither a member of SEA or a self-declared Arminian, his thoughts on Ephesians 1 are very insightful.
QUESTION: Calvinists say that Ephesians 1:1-11 clearly establishes the absolute and all-inclusive sovereignty of God, including the unconditional predestination of the elect to salvation. How do you interpret this text?
ANSWER: A right understanding of Ephesians 1:1-11 begins with the recognition that God’s purpose for Israel was from the beginning limited to preparing for the coming of the Messiah, namely, for the incarnation of God the Logos as the human person Jesus of Nazareth. Once the Messiah came, it was God’s eternal purpose to merge all believing Israelites and all believing Gentiles into one new body called the church. This is the main point of the book of Ephesians, and it is the key to understanding the often misused passage in Ephesians 1:1-11.
Below are some comments I made long ago in my perseverance series against the idea that the writer of Hebrews is addressing his warnings of falling away to those whose faith is not genuine, or…
“Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study us and our ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused…
The purpose of this post is to define Arminian soteriology. Arminianism in general is the views of James Arminius. Of course, Arminius’ views span more then just salvation. They include the freewill of man, God’s…
I was going to write a second post on corporate election, but I am postponing it to look at something which Alan Kurschner has recently put out on Dr. James White’s blog. He calls it…
One of John Wesley’s finest contributions to theology was his understanding of prevenient grace. Broadly speaking, this is the grace that “goes before”—that grace which precedes human action and reflects God’s heart to pursue his…
Roger E. Olson, PhD writes: “Theodicy”–The attempt to justify the ways of God in the face of the problem of evil. A friendly correspondent sent me this URL to an article in today’s Chronicle of…
This question was once posed to Dr. Roger Olson, and I’ve been thinking it over: if I became convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God really did govern the way that Calvinists claim…
This is a brief snippet from Dr. Roger Olson’s post: “About judging God’s morality” Recently, an acquaintance asked me if I am guilty of “judging God’s morality.” He explained that his reason for asking is…
I have noticed a new tactic from Calvinists—accusing Arminians of “judging God” (cf. Roger Olson’s post about this from January of 2012). But is that a fair accusation? Can we judge God?
First of all, we have to ask what in the world it means to judge God. Let’s first take it in the broadest sense: Do we have the right to make a judgment about whether God is good or bad? Well, clearly we do, since the Bible declares God to be good, and calls us to recognize His goodness. Declaring God to be good is judging Him; judging Him to be good that is. So clearly we are allowed to do this.
Alright, well perhaps our Calvinist friends mean something different when they say judge. So let us consider the most restrictive/literal sense: a judge presiding over a court of law. However, this doesn’t really make sense either since we can’t really pass a verdict on God. At least we can’t enforce one.
In the book Against Calvinism, Roger Olson asserts that Calvinism damages God’s reputation, and that it (unintentionally) turns God into a moral monster who is hardly distinguishable from the devil. Olson doesn’t argue that Calvinists affirm that God is like the devil. Rather, in his view it is the logical implication of Calvinism. It’s a strong assertion, but I agree. John Wesley did also.
This was written by SEA member Bob Anderson in response to John Piper’s recent post “What Made It OK for God to Kill Women, Children in Old Testament?” He gave us permission to post it…
Ware is a 4 point Calvinist who affirms unlimited atonement. This overview of the issue of the extent of the atonement is useful for its arguments against limited atonement (see the attachment). But beware of…