Of Course Arminians Believe In Predestination?

With certainty, there will be both Calvinists and Arminians in heaven.  A Calvinist may arrive in heaven to find out he was right all along.  Perhaps the Arminian will discover that he was right all along.  But one thing is certain, both the Calvinist and Arminian can never conclude that they were both right. These two Christian doctrines are in such contradiction a shipwreck for one is assured.  I still firmly believe that both ships will arrive safely in the harbor.

As one sailing on the Arminian ship I would like to address a myth that is common on that other ship; the idea that Arminians do not believe in predestination.  Arminians shake their heads at the absurdity of this accusation.  Of course Arminians believe in predestination.

 “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren." - Romans 8:29.   Arminians are strong proponents of predestination. We see no conflict between free will and predestination. But, we struggle with the idea of making free will compatible with determinism. We believe in God's foreknowledge, of course. God foreknows every person' ultimate and final decision regarding Jesus Christ. We believe the focus of predestination should be primarily on Jesus Christ. God foreknew that Christ would make the right choices regarding the cross. God predestined Christ’s death and resurrection based on the decisions he knew Christ would make..

We believe Calvinism ship wrecks on the issue of double predestination. It is illogical to believe that God predetermined some to believe and go to heaven but he did not predetermine others to NOT believe and go to hell. We believe that a holy and pure and sinless God cannot predetermine individuals to hell. This is contrary to God's nature.   Can God do all things?  Can God do anything he wants?  Some may be surprised that he answer is no.  He cannot do anything that contradicts his nature. It is unimaginable, had I power to condemn one of my sons to spend eternity in hell that I would do such a thing. It is even more unimaginable to believe that God would assign people to hell based on his own arbitrary nature even before they had an opportunity to make any decisions or participate in any actions that might make them responsible or accountable.

 Scripture teaches that God extends salvation to all men. "Whosever believeth in him...", (John 3:16) "If any man come to me..." Luke 14:6 "For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people." (Titus 2:11) “He is a propitiation for the sins of the whole world” [1 John. 2:2.], “He tasted death for every man” [Heb. 2:9.], “He gave himself a ransom for all” [1 Tim. 2:6.]. It is a gracious decree given of God through his Son Jesus Christ that he is determined to justify and adopt all who will believe. Does not God become a hypocrite if he so clearly extends this invitation to all men knowing that he has already determined some of those men to be lost? Therefore, Arminians believe in predestination but it is conditioned on the choices men make. We don't believe they can make those choices apart from the spirit of God.

 Most would agree that it is logically impossible for God to predestinate to heaven but not to hell. To choose some for heaven and not all to heaven is going to assure that some are chosen for hell. Where are those verses in the Bible that indicate that an arbitrary God sends men to hell unconditionally? I believe this is unproven in scripture because it makes God the author of sin and this, too, is illogical and non-sensical because the Bible teaches that it is God's will that none should perish and all should come to repentance. (Tim 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9) God declares a universal desire that all men be saved.  But, he gives them the gift of free will and in so doing he realizes that some will not use their gift in the manner he wishes and therefore must be punished for their disobedience.  He places the onus on man.  Believe and be saved, or rebel and be lost.

Arminians do not downplay the role of faith in salvation. Faith is the condition for being elected, a gift of God. Faith is NOT the cause of election, God alone is the cause of election. Therefore, God causes the election of those who will have faith in Him. Election is conditional, not on the provisions of God, he will! It is conditional on whether man will choose to believe, he may, he may not. God allows this freedom of man's will because he is not a club-bearing God who will arbitrarily take people to heaven whether they want to go or not and cast people in hell whether they have any accountability or not. "Election and predestination are not the unconditional and mysterious choosing of certain individuals known only to God, but is rather the election and predestination of those who have faith in Christ their Redeemer. Election is in Christ but no one is in Christ without faith." - William Witt

Though I don't agree with all of Philip Limborch's theology, I certainly agree with him regarding 'absolute reprobation'.  "The doctrine of absolute reprobation (Because God elects some to heaven he must therefore elect others to hell) is repugnant to the divine perfections of holiness, justice, sincerity, wisdom, and love."  (A Complete System, or, Body of Divinity, p. 371).  The core problem for Arminians is that unconditional predestination is totally incompatible to the very nature or God.  It is not who God is.  "Surely it is dishonorable to the name of God to suppose that he would charge on sinners a resistance which was to them a necessity, and complain of outrage on His Spirit whose influences were only partially put forth." -  William Burton Pope.  Would God infect a man with sin, determine him to never have an opportunity to be free of it and then, in a rage, condemn him to an eternal hell?  This is an absurdity in the minds of Arminians. 

Those who respond to the call of the Spirit of God and who, with God’s help, choose to believe (have faith) are predestined to an eternity with the Savior.  Who said Arminians do not believe in predestination?

Kevin teaches Bible and Apologetics to high school students at Lafayette Christian School in LaGrange, Georgia. He loves writing about theology, apologetics and politics.

Why would you call that Arminianism?

In my discussions with those friends who are persuaded by Calvinism and especially by the doctrine of predestination, I find they often do misunderstand or display a healthy ignorance of what true Arminianism really is.  I cringe when I hear Arminians accused of believing that they must earn their salvation through good works.  It is eye-popping and heart-stopping to hear that Arminians believe that they have an equal part with God in the salvation of their souls.  Here is their misconception in a nutshell:  that Armininians must initiate their own salvation and then maintain it through the accumulation of good works. 

 

Classical Arminianism has always given God all the glory for salvation and reserved no credit whatsoever for human endeavor in the work of salvation.  All true classical Arminians will declare that the human soul is completely and entirely dead in trespasses and sins and every man would  be hopelessly lost without the prevenient grace (that grace which prepares the way) extended by the Holy Spirit of God.  This prevenient grace is taught throughout scripture, although, like the word ‘trinity’, ‘prevenient grace’ is never found in the Bible. 

In spite of the opinions of uninformed Calvinists, Jacob Arminius had a passionate commitment to the grace of God.  Arminius’ theology was clearly sola gratia.  To interpret the theology of Arminius by the beliefs of those who followed is an error committed by many who have never studied the original works of the man.  Thus, Arminians get a bum rap by being compared to Pelagians, semi-Pelagians or devotees of the Remonstrants who successfully twisted the original doctrines of Arminianism so as to make them at least unbiblical and at most heretical.

Arminius didn’t deny the work of God’s grace in the salvation of man.  He did question whether that grace was irresistible.   The Calvinist would argue that if grace is resistible then salvation cannot be all of grace.  The Arminian wonders why the Calvinist believes that resistance to the gift causes the gift to be sullied or diminished.  Why, asks the Arminian, is the gift not worthy of reception if it is accepted willingly?  It is only worthy of reception if we are forced to receive it.

Simon Episcopius and Arminius, unlike Philip Limborch and later Remonstrants, believed that prevenient grace is the grace that goes before to prepare the soul to respond freely to the calling of the Spirit of God to salvation.  Through the ages true classical Arminians have lamented the fact that Limborch’s theology has been labeled ‘Arminian’.  Limborch believed that the fallen human will needs only assistance, mainly through access of knowledge, not renewal, in order to acquire salvation.  Arminius would say that man is totally depraved and it is impossible to do or think any good without prevening grace.   Limborch would counter by saying that man is not totally depraved, he is only weakened by his lack of knowledge and limited capabilities.

John Wesley redirected Arminianism back toward its original form.  Although he has been falsely accused of being a Pelagian for several hundred years now.  A careful reading of Wesley’s sermon “On Working Out Our Own Salvation” should remove all doubt as to his position on the grace of God.  “Whatsoever good is in man, or is done by man, God is the author and doer of it,” Wesley proclaimed.  Wesley taught that we can only respond to God because he did first extend his grace to us.

Prevenient grace does not remove the free will of man so that he can be forced to salvation by an arbitrary God.  Prevenient grace simply prepares the heart of man so that he can choose to not resist the grace of God.  Having received prevenient grace he can choose not to reject it or he can choose to resist it but not without consequences.  Thus, the only role of the human in his own salvation is the nonresistance to the grace of God.

Adam Clarke summed up the Arminian position by saying, “God gives the power (to believe).  Man uses the power thus given, and brings glory to God:  Without the power no man can believe; with it, any man can.”  (quoted in H. Orten Wiley’s Christian Theology, pp. 369-70)  Faith is an expression of man’s free will only after it is recognized as a work of God.

Free Will Baptist theologian Leroy Forelines summed Arminian’s interpretation of grace by saying: “The Holy Spirit must work before there can be a successful communication of the gospel to the sinner and before there will be conviction and response from the sinner.”    

Arminians believe salvation is impossible without the effectual preparatory grace of God.  The application of this grace to the human soul does not eliminate or diminish the soul’s freedom.  It simply enables the soul to no longer resist the grace of God.  Arminianism promotes the scriptural teaching of salvation by grace through faith alone.  God makes this possible without diminishing the responsibility of man to practice non-resistance toward his grace.

Kevin teaches Bible and Apologetics to high school students at Lafayette Christian School in LaGrange, Georgia. He loves writing about theology, apologetics and politics.

Three Little Frogs

 

Kameron, my eight year old son, has a healthy fascination for all living creatures.  I have heard his mother’s alarm go off many times in years past as Kameron dragged another living discovery into our home.  These have included spiders, roly polys, centipedes, baby birds and box turtles. 

 

I came home the other day to find three small frogs in a plastic container just inside the garage door.  They had grass, water and several sticks and stones to jump about on.  All three of them were jumping like Mexican jumping beans, trying to escape their plastic prison.

 

I called for Kameron and we had a long conversation about how wild creatures don’t do well in captivity and it might be wise and merciful to release the three frogs.  This idea was met with strong resistance.  I decided to let the matter rest and address it later.

 

Another conversation regarding the release of the frogs was unnecessary.  Several hours later I saw Kameron talking to his new friends and walking them to separate areas of our property.  I assumed he was releasing them and I was pleased that he had decided to do the right thing without further persuasion from his father.

 

Later that evening I asked him about his frogs.  His answer was surprising and disturbing.  “I took the first frog to the end of the lot where I had decided to throw him into the burn barrel.  I set the second frog in the garden where he has plenty to eat and much to make him happy.  When I returned to get the third frog he had decided to hop away on his own.”   Needless to say I was speechless.

 

While I was trying to compose a response I began to wonder why Kameron thought he had the right to take the lives of two innocent frogs.  It was obvious that any compassion he might have felt for the frogs was overcome by his intoxication with the power he had over them.  Because my mind tends to lean toward theology I found myself following another train of thought. 

 

Three people come to the end of their days and are called to face their judge.  They are anxious as they approach one whom they have been told is powerful and sovereign yet loving and compassionate.  The first one approaches the bench to plead his cause but the judge cuts him short by making a stunning declaration,

 “I conducted a lottery before I created the earth and your destiny was determined before you were even born.  Your lot is to perish eternally in hell,” the judge declared.

“But if you predetermined that my destiny would be hell, then how am I responsible or accountable?” the first one asked.

“No answer to your question is forthcoming because the things you ask me of are a secret matter and will remain secret,” the Judge sternly answered.

 

A second person approached the bench in fear and trembling having heard the preceding interaction.   But, much to his relief he was ushered into heaven by the same God who had so coldly cast off the previous person.

 

Finally, the third person approached the bench with strong reservations about whether he wanted to go to hell and live in eternal misery or go to heaven and live with a god who seemed to be so arbitrary, even capricious.  Had he been deceived by those who had taught him about the love of God?  Was the goodness of this God totally dwarfed by his greatness?  He was told over and over again that “God is love.”  This may be true but observing what had just happened caused the third man to believe this God not very loving.  Would a loving God desiring true fellowship and relationship with his creatures not gift them with the ability to choose or reject that relationship? 

 

The third man looked closely into the eyes of the judge in search of evidence to back the claim that “God is love”.  He decided there was no love to be found or if there was any love it was so miniscule it could not be detected.  The fear peeled away as he realized he was seeing an imposter.  He turned around and walked away determined to search until he found the one and true God who gave his Son for ALL those who would choose Him.

 

It is unthinkable that “God is love” would predetermine evil.  The Calvinist would believe that the love of God is defined by his greatness.  The classical Arminian would believe that the power of God is clearly defined by his great love.  We can do no justice to the sovereignty of God by diminishing his love.  God created man to have relationship with him and to derive glory from him.  Relationship is always a two way street.  No relationship can exist if only one party makes all the decisions.

 

“God is love” indeed!  He loved us so much he was willing to limit his own power to grant to us free will.  Our freedom to choose is a gift from God.  Why did he do this?  Obviously he wanted to lay the foundation for a relationship with us.  Why did he send his Son to the cross?   Was it not because he wanted the relationship to last forever?

Kevin teaches Bible and Apologetics to high school students at Lafayette Christian School in LaGrange, Georgia. He loves writing about theology, apologetics and politics.

Does God Choose Us Or Do We Choose God

Predestination or Free Will?

The question so often debated among Christians, especially those who call themselves Calvinists and those who identify as Arminians, is this:  Does a man have free will or is a man’s free will submerged under the flood waters of God’s sovereignty?  God woos us, he pursues us and he draws us to himself, but does he override our ability to “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.” (Joshua 24:15)

Norman Geisler, author of Chosen But Free, reminds us that “With the exception of the later writings of Augustine, virtually all the great thinkers up to the reformation affirmed that human beings possess the power of free choice, even in a fallen state.”  John Calvin had a voracious appetite for all things Augustinian and is credited with creating the great emphasis on predestination.  Though Calvin was certainly a proponent of this doctrine, he didn’t emphasize it nearly as much as his successors. Calvin quotes Augustine more than any other in his Institutes of Christian Religion along with Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther.

Among the early church fathers, Augustine’s opinions seem to have been in the minority.   Calvin was strongly drawn to Augustine while ignoring majority opinions.  Whereas Calvin and Augustine would argue that man is so utterly depraved that he cannot possibly make a choice for anything good, other church fathers argued that because man was created in the very image of God, he retained limited freedom of will as a result of God’s image within his nature.  Man’s will was certainly corrupted by the invasion of evil within his heart, but the image of God within man prevented the complete obliteration of his will.  In other words, a corrupt man is still capable of willing to do some good. 

Among those early church fathers proposing the freedom of man’s will:

     

Iraneous, (130-200, Against Heresies), “God made man a free agent from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God.  For there is no coercion with God.”

      

Tertullian, (155-225, Against Marcion), “I find, then, that man was by God constituted free ,master of his own will and power; indicating the presence of God’s image and likeness in him.”    

Gregory of Nyssa, (335-395, On Virginity), “Being in the image and the likeness of the Power which rules all things, man kept also in the matter of a free will this likeness to Him whose will is over all.”

What most Christians believe about free will can be traced to the teachings and interpretations of three men; Pelagius, Jacob Arminius and John Calvin.  Pelagius denied that men had need of any assistance from God when seeking salvation.  Jacob Arminius believed that God freed the will of man so he could choose to obey and be saved.  John Calvin believed that man is so totally depraved that he cannot possibly make a decision to follow Christ and God must decide for him (predestination). 

A summary of these positions follows:

1.  Palagian:  We are free to choose God or not.  The fall of mankind into sin had no adverse affect on his ability to make a choice.   God makes his offer and we simply say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

2.  Semi-Palagian:  This is a softening of Palagian’s limitations on God’s part in the salvation of man.  Men can make a decision for God but only with the help of god.  Sin has had devastating effects on the will of man and God must bring healing to the will before the will can respond to his call.

 

3.  Arminian: God is not willing that any should perish so he extends his invitation to all men.  Man, in is depraved state, cannot seek God, therefore, God extends to all men a pre-emptive grace, a prevenient grace, that affectively prepares the heart for the indwelling of God.  Men may will to receive this grace or reject it.

4.  Calvinism (Augustinianism):  Man is so entirely depraved (dead) in his state of sin that it is impossible for him to make a choice for God.  Therefore, God must make the choice for him.  Man’s salvation is monergistic, meaning that God’s will works independently and alone for the salvation of man.  God may decide to save someone or he may very well walk on by, in that case, he declares the person one of the unelected.

The first three preserve man’s free will in some form and fashion.  Only the last, Calvinism, eliminates man’s freedom to choose.

  

Moses came off the mountain and presented his people with the Ten Commandments from God.  The assumption is that if God formulated these ten rules and identified them as ‘commandments’ then he fully expected them to obey and live by them.  When Jesus preached his Sermon on the Mount, was He setting a standard too high for his followers?  Would it not be a cruel thing to expect the impossible?  Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matthew 5:48) This sounds like an impossible command but Jesus is not calling us to absolute perfection, he is calling us to completion.  Much of our ‘perfection’ is measured by our motive, not a flawless performance.  Our completion is finalized when we leave this life and enter a glorified state with Christ.    

The elimination of man’s free will makes a pure and holy God responsible for the sin in the world.  Norman Geisler points out in chapter four of his book, Chosen But Free, a chapter he entitled “Why Blame Me?” that the common statement ‘The devil made me do it’ leads to another question, “Who made the devil do it?”  The answer must be God.  When we make attempts to eliminate our own free will we eventually cast the blame for sin on a pure and holy God incapable of authoring sin. 

What are God’s expectations of those who call themselves ‘followers’?  Geisler teaches that ‘ought implies can’.  If God gives us Ten Commandments and expects that we ought to keep them then he will provide us with the necessary grace and power to do just that.  "..God never prescribes anything without providing the way to accomplish it. If we are morally bound, then we must be morally free." Geisler says. 

Free will is a gift of God to mankind.  We messed up when we began to make poor choices.  Therefore, the responsibility for sin and suffering in this world rests squarely on our shoulders and God has no accountability for the evil we created with our own choice to resist God and refuse his favor.

Calvin and Augustine would refute Arminius’ idea that the image of God in us has profound meaning and provides us with the ability to practice freedom of our will.  Therefore, we can ‘choose this day whom we will serve’.  If ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, then the verse found in Deuteronomy 30:19 is not meaningless when it clearly states that we ‘ought’ to “choose life”. 

How might we answer the question ‘does God choose us or do we choose God?’  God first chooses us.  “For God so love the world that he sent his only begotten son,” and then he enables us to choose him “that whosoever believes in him”.  This cooperative (synergistic) effort does not in any way limit the sovereignty of God.  It preserves his sovereignty and accentuates his love and the result is a voluntary, non coercive eternal relationship… “shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (John 3:16)

Kevin Probst - Teaches History, Government and Apologetics at the high school level in Columbus Georgia.