Related Fallacies:
Strawman
Begging the Question
“While libertarians uphold the philosophy that “choice without sufficient cause” is what makes one responsible, the compatibilist, on the other hand, looks to Scripture which testifies that it is because our choices have motives and desires that moral responsibility is actually established. Responsibility requires that our acts, of necessity, be intentional….” (Eleven (11) Reasons to Reject Libertarian Free Will, John Hendryx)
by Roger E. Olson
Below is a rather lengthy essay I have written. I welcome you to pass it around. It is not copyrighted, but please keep my name and blog address attached to it when you send or post it. [Editor’s Note: The following essay may also be found as a downloadable pdf attachment at the end of this post.]
ARMINIANISM IS GOD-CENTERED THEOLOGY
Dr. Dan Wallace’s comments against the corporate election model have been referenced many times on the internet by various Calvinists as an authoritative critique of the view. Because of this we have asked our very…
John Piper was asked by Cathy Grossman, from USA Today, what he would tell the children who lost their parents on 9/11. She understood Piper to be suggesting that a victim should concentrate on the…
Taken from http://arminiantoday.blogspot.com/2010/06/jack-cottrell-on-free-will.html
QUESTION: Many (usually Arminians) argue that without free will in a significant (libertarian) sense, i.e., the ability to choose between good and evil, human actions would not be worthy of praise or blame. Thus in order to preserve moral responsibility, human beings must have free will in the libertarian sense—the freedom of opposite moral choice. But is this consistent with the freedom of God Himself, whom we assume to be the ultimate model for freedom? The following are said to be true of God:
1. God is surely the freest being in the universe. He is free to do whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3), and all his choices are surely praiseworthy.
Theological discussion in various venues often pits one position of belief against its opposites. Supporters of one position or another like to issue proposition statements of the form ‘If they would give _____ an honest…
Heresies are born out of the mindset that one’s theology and only one’s theology can possibly be the sole orthodox position viable for Christians. When an individual cannot at least acknowledge that he or she could be wrong on some theological points, the cult-mindset has set in. But know this, friends, only God’s Word is completely accurate. Our understanding of his Word can be inaccurate. Russell Henry Stafford writes:
By J.C. Thibodaux Related Fallacies: Oversimplification Strawman False Dilemma One of the most telling signs of the fallacious nature of Calvinist apologetics in general is its heavy reliance upon caricatures and misrepresentation of the beliefs…
Related Fallacies: Strawman “Bait and Switch” “Why are you a Christian and your friends aren’t? … Is it because you are smarter than your friend?” (The Pelagian Captivity of the Church, R.C. Sproul) …I believe…
Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987), in his The Defense of the Faith writes, “since the whole debate between the Christian and the non-Christian positions revolves about the question of the relation of the eternal to the…
Admittedly, no systematic theology is perfect. That takes a load of pressure off of every sincere Bible student. Not one of us will ever have all of his or her doctrines correct. C. I. Scofield wrote that there will always exist a measure of false teaching in true, orthodox Christianity, due to our fallen nature and our design as finite creatures.
I was once convinced that Calvinism was right because people showed me a lot of proof texts to propagate this theology. I had read Chosen by God by R. C. Sproul and concluded that he, too, was correct. How could I have missed out on this teaching for so long? I will never forget what affect Sproul’s book had on my heart. How could God have chosen me and not others? Moreover, why would God have chosen me and not others?
This is a detailed study of Calvinism in light of the earliest Christian writers (Ante-Nicene Church Fathers). It demonstrates that the primary features of Calvinism were not taught by the Ante-Nicene Fathers but were actually considered heretical by these early Christian writers (often connected to various forms of gnosticism). Numerous quotes from these Ante-Nicene writers are provided for the reader to carefully consider.
Defending a term such as prevenient grace poses the same problem as defending such terms as trinity, total depravity, supra-, infra-, or sublapsarianism, or even Bible, for such terms do not appear in the Bible.
What, then, does the Arminian mean by the term prevenient grace? The word prevenient means “preceding;” thus the term, in its most simple form, means “grace which goes before,” or, “preceding grace” (or, as in ancient usage, “preventing grace”). So when the Bible claims that people are “saved by grace” (Eph. 2:8), Arminians understand that this grace must precede salvation if a person is to be saved (something which no Calvinist would deny).
The subject of God’s knowledge has been a seed bed of debate lately. Modern day Molinists believe that their system offers a middle-ground approach to theology, avoiding both Calvinism and Arminianism. One of my professors…
“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)…
Concerning God’s sovereignty and human freedom, Bowman offers the following, The Reformed tradition’s insistence on God’s absolute sovereignty is related to its concern for radical aseity [that God is self-originated, self-sustained] . . . both…
The Nature of Wesleyan Theology
From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
J. Kenneth Grider
Theology, when it is entered into by us Wesleyans, takes on a certain nature, in relation to other theologies: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinist. It is of the very nature of Wesleyan theology that it has (1) an experiential interest, (2) an existential element, (3) a large-scoped biblical character, (4) a dynamic quality, (5) a catholicity, and 6) a homing instinct for the moral.
Its Experiential Interest
John Wesley On the Origins of Evil
From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
Barry E. Bryant
One of the more important questions ever confronted by Christian theologians has been how to reconcile the idea that God is loving, good, and just with the presence of evil in the world. The Greek Epicurus summarized the issue well when he asked, “What is the cause of evil?” In answering this question he concluded:
God. . . either wished to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does He not remove them?2
JOHN WESLEY: PRACTICAL THEOLOGIAN? From the Wesleyan Theological Journal Randy L. Maddox FOR: Dr. J. Kenneth Grider 1 When one reads secondary treatments of Wesley one repeatedly comes across disclaimers of his being a “systematic”…
JOHN FLETCHER’S INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESLEYAN THEOLOGY IN AMERICA
From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
By John A. Knight
Introduction
Not until recent years has the significance of John Fletcher’s theology been assessed by interpreters of the history of Christian doctrine. For almost two hundred years his work was eclipsed by the Wesleys and by some in the Calvinistic wing of the 18th century Evangelical Revival in England, except for occasional references by historians and biographers of his contemporaries.
David C. Shipley’s perceptive study, “Methodist Arminianism in the Theology of John Fletcher,” unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Yale, 1942, was a pioneer work in this country. Particularly in the last two decades others have begun to recognize the importance of Fletcher to the development of Wesleyan theology.1
