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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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Corporate Election Analogies

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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.

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How Coporate Election Works

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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…

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Corporate Election

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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.

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Brian Abasciano’s Response to a Review of His Book on Romans 9:10-18

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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:

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How Prevenient Grace Shapes Our Missional Presence

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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.

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Does 1 John 2:18-19 Support the Calvinist “Never Saved to Begin With” View of Apostasy?

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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.

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Theologians Explain Why the Chicken Crossed the Road (Humor)

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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.

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Recent responses to Against Calvinism

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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.

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Words That Arminians and Calvinists Define Differently

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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.

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Does Ephesians 1:1-11 Support Calvinism?

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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.

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