Calvin vs. Arminius

[Rhonda Lou]

You cannot punish someone for not doing something that they are unable to do. You cannot punish an infant for not driving to the store to buy you a newspaper when he is unable to understand you or do what you tell him to do. Punishing an infant like this with extreme torture is child abuse of the worst kind. If Calvinism is true, God would be like this father. You can only deserve hell if you have the power to choose God and His plan of redemption.

To back this up with Scripture. The true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. (Joh 1:9)

But if I [Jesus] go, I will send Him [Holy Spirit] to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. (Joh 16:7,8)

Romans 1:18-25 states that man is without excuse. The people in hell will have only themselves to blame. They will not be able to blame God for not electing them.

This is essentially the argument Pelagius made in the early 400's A.D. He said that man could only be held responsible for those things he is able to do. This makes sense from a human perspective, but just does not line up with the testimony of scripture. Scipture affirms in numerous places that we were completely dead in our trespasses and sins and unable to do any spiritual good before God (Ephesians 2;1ff for example). Our responsibility before God is not based on our ability to obey Him. It is based on the absolute perection and rightness of God's character and His morality (moral law). Jesus did not say, Be perfect because you are able to be so!. He said be perfect as your Father is perfect (Matthew 5:5). God has also provided a way (apart from our own abilities) for us to fulfill this law. That is why it is grace. It is not of ourselves (our abilities)

Nowhere does it say in Scripture that faith is a gift of God. Eph 2:8 says: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. In the Greek "faith" is feminine while "that" is in the neuter. So the gift does not refer to faith but to grace.

Rom 6:23 says: For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom 3:23-24 says: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 3:26 then says: To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Salvation is a gift of God but not faith itself. Eph 2:8 says we are saved by grace (God's part) through faith (our part). Joh 3:16 says that whosoever believes is saved.

Colossians 2:13a says, "And you, being dead in your trespasses..." How can a dead person believe? "A person in the flesh cannot perceive God: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed CAN BE." (Romans 6:8) "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; NOR CAN HE KNOW THEM, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14) How can one who CANNNOT understand the things of God be saved? Romans 3:11-12 and 23 says, "11No one understands [no one intelligently discerns or comprehends]; no one seeks out God, 12All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one!...23Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives

[rca]

Jam 4:8 says: Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

Notice who takes the first action. God only draws nigh to you if you draw nigh to Him first.

On the other hand we have Jesus saying that we did not choose Him, He chose us.

In Joh 15:16 Jesus said that you did not choose Me, I chose you and ordained you. He spoke this in the Upper room where the only audience were the 11 apostles. Judas already left to betray Jesus. Jesus was saying this to the disciples. He chose and ordained them for the special role of being His disciples. Jesus was not talking about whether God gave the disciples saving faith or if the disciples chose to believe.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (Joh 1:11-12)

The order of events here is Jesus came in the flesh to the world. Most received Him not but some did. The ones that did receive Him God gave the power to become the sons of God. Here the people had to receive Him first. Then they were given the power to become the Sons of God.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. [JOH 3:16]

Order of events. God so loved the world. Whosoever believes gets saved. God loved the whole world first. He gave His Son to pay for all our sins. Then whoever believes receives this gift of salvation.

So your logic is that everything said in the upper room to the 11 only is only for them? The passage says that He chose them to bear fruit. The only way a person can bear fruit is for them to receive the new birth. The passages you have cited only describe belief as the mode of salvation. They do not address how people received that ability to believe. That is addressed in other passages, for example Acts 13:48

When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and glorified the message of the Lord, and all who had been appointed to eternal life believed.

(Acts

[rca]

Colossians 2:13a says, "And you, being dead in your trespasses..." How can a dead person believe? "A person in the flesh cannot perceive God: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed CAN BE." (Romans 6:8) "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; NOR CAN HE KNOW THEM, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14) How can one who CANNNOT understand the things of God be saved? Romans 3:11-12 and 23 says, "11No one understands [no one intelligently discerns or comprehends]; no one seeks out God, 12All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one!...23Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives

Edited November 12, 2009 by rca

[EricH]

The problem with those that hold both the pure Arminian position and the pure Calvinist position is that they are both typically guilty of a logical error known as duality reductionalism. Typically this occurs where there is a paradox (not a contradiction) in scripture. Scripture affirms 2 things:

1. God is absolutely sovereign over every thing that occurs (including the process of salvation)

2. Human beings make real decisions for which God holds them morally accountable and that have real consequences

The problem comes when holders of one position or the other raise one of these statements of scripture to the status of prime datum and force the other statement to fit underneath it. Arminian theologians typically do this with the concept of human choice. They make this the prime datum (even though the scriptures do not) and force all passages dealing with sovereignty to fit the prime datum or they are ignored all together (as was the Acts passage folks asked about earlier). Calvinist theologians do the same thing with sovereignty. They raise it up and force passages that describe human choice to fit under the prime datum.

The odd thing is that scipture in no place explains the metaphysics behind the paradox of human choice and divine soveriegnty. But holders of both theologies have attempted to do so, and that is exactly the space in which most of the arguments ensue. Both sides have scriptures to back up ther claims. Both have created logical explanations of how the pardox can be resolved (even though scripture does not fully explain it). So in my view, both theologies fall short in some way, because the attempt to explain things scripture itself does not explain

The most we can say is that there is no contradiction. A contradiction is where something is A and not A at the same time, in the same sense,and in the same relationship. A paradox is something that can appear at first glance to be a contradiciton, but is not when examined further. The tension between human choice and divine sovereignty is a paradox. Scripture does not say God is soveriegn, but not soveriegn. Scripture does not say people make choices, but do not make them.

The most we can say is that God's sovereignty over all things and peoples ability to make real decisions interact in such a way as to not negate each other. We do not however have the full explanation. So the most we can do is affirm both, but be careful of defining them too stringently so as to create an apparent contradiction, or to lessen one or the other so that they no longer fit what the Bible actually says.

[WayneB]

The most we can say is that God's sovereignty over all things and peoples ability to make real decisions interact in such a way as to not negate each other. We do not however have the full explanation. So the most we can do is affirm both, but be careful of defining them too stringently so as to create an apparent contradiction, or to lessen one or the other so that they no longer fit what the Bible actually says.

Well stated...very well stated. Another "must have stayed at a Holiday Inn" moment.

[turtletwo]

Thank you so much for clarifying this, EricH. I never heard the term duality reductionalism (before you mentioned it) ... But your explaination made sense and gave me some peace of mind. This is a doctrinal difference which I have struggled with in much confusion (and at times anguish, thinking that perhaps I was one created to never go to Heaven. That God did not want me. I based that on Him not healing me of my neurological disease, silly as that sounds perhaps. Because my denomination I grew up in was very anti-sickness. And the most radical offshoots of it make out that it is actually a sin to be sick! I'm sure you are aware of that Scripture which says God "does not hear the prayers of the wicked." So I figured that must be the reason for my disease never going away. God still viewed me as the wicked (because maybe He had never actually imputed Christ's Righteousness to me.) Or maybe somehow my sincere prayer to get Saved in my youth was still missing something important and had never produced real Conversion in me. Or my various times of backsliding had caused me to lose that Salvation I originally had as a girl. I even considered at times that I must have commited the unpardonable sin. Hope against hope, though ..I kept re-praying,"Lord- I do repent of ANYTHING that might be blocking me being genuinely Yours." I just wanted to make sure! Still, this verse about Him deafening His hearing of the prayers of the wicked haunted me and I kept assuming this was the reason I couldn't get healed either supernaturally or even led by God to decent medical care...It was a vicious cycle. The more I cried out to the Lord in prayer for my healing and the longer I remained so utterly ill, the more I questioned if I was not truely Saved or in fact one of the wicked or lost...And started to seriously wonder if I was doomed to spend eternity without Christ! That made me shudder and tremble. Such a horrible thought! It is bad enough to suffer terribly in this earthly life... With disease, serious family problems, etc. But it was absolutely overwhelming to think of me suffering true Hell (the place those not in Christ will go)...forever!) I was personally raised up in a church that taught only free will. So I never even knew that Calvinism existed. This (what my church taught...which was a form of Arminianism) was a more comforting position to me, in the way that everyone could know they were Saved because they had chosen to follow Christ. And I just knew deep down in my heart that even though I sometimes struggled with God's sovereign choices ( an example being His allowing intense sufferings )... there would never come a time I would not want Jesus. I gave my life to him when I was young. He (and wanting to serve Him ) are all I have ever known! I feel like Peter when the Lord asked the disciples,"Will you walk away from me too?" and Peter replied, "Lord to whom else would we go? For You alone hold the words of truth." But back to what EricH said...As far as pure Arminianism, I don't totally agree with it. Even though I had more peace with free will (until about a year ago, when I discovered Calvinism and started learning up on it. I rented a lengthy dvd on the subject, which in some ways gave me a headache as it seemed to make the sweet simplicity of the John 3:16 Gospel too complex... But it did produce nagging doubts about my own soul's destiny, which I did try over and over to resolve. Finally today I think I get it, praise God! Salvation is Grace, which I did nothing to earn. Even repentance is not a work. It is my response to God's gracious invitation... I would compare it to a man asking a woman he loves to marry him. She will either turn him down or she'll gladly recieve that love being extended to her. It is simply a response. Not a work. For God wants those who choose to love Him...not robots who HAD to say so no to Him, because God foreordained it. The Bible says He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. So we are ALL wanted. Praise God! I confess it frightened & deeply saddened me to think about an all loving God predestinying some to Heaven, others to Hell. Naturally- I didn't want my family, myself, etc to be in that unfortunate last group! That's why I got so angry with God for awhile. I thought,"Great! Not only does He want me to be in pain on this earth, but forever and ever...in pain FAR worse. " But now I see it was Satan trying to mentally and spiritually torment me with such dark thoughts. So if anybody would ask if I was an Arminian or a Calvanist, I would have to say neither...I am somewhere in the middle. Or better yet, a fusion of the biblical truths of both. If I am understanding EricH correctly, he is saying some spiritual matters are too deep to understand fully. They are God's mysteries and we can not wrap our puny human minds around them, to make them more logical to us. We must just accept them by faith. For after all, the verse that says we are Saved by Grace also says through faith. And the Scripture says that we are to come to Him like little children, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven. There are certain doctrines we simply find mind boggling. Like the Trinity. Yet we accept it by faith, because Scripture states it as a fact. Perhaps some things just aren't meant to be comprehended. After all, we are just creations whileHe is God. His mental capacities outweigh ours by a lot! "His ways are higher than ours." as Scripture declares. Sorry for such a long post, but had to share my relief and joy on God's helping me to see the light, through this thread. Plus, I hoped that my own struggles through the journey of spiritual struggle with this doctrine might help someone else.

[Rhonda Lou]

The problem with those that hold both the pure Arminian position and the pure Calvinist position is that they are both typically guilty of a logical error known as duality reductionalism. Typically this occurs where there is a paradox (not a contradiction) in scripture. Scripture affirms 2 things:

1. God is absolutely sovereign over every thing that occurs (including the process of salvation)

2. Human beings make real decisions for which God holds them morally accountable and that have real consequences

The problem comes when holders of one position or the other raise one of these statements of scripture to the status of prime datum and force the other statement to fit underneath it. Arminian theologians typically do this with the concept of human choice. They make this the prime datum (even though the scriptures do not) and force all passages dealing with sovereignty to fit the prime datum or they are ignored all together (as was the Acts passage folks asked about earlier). Calvinist theologians do the same thing with sovereignty. They raise it up and force passages that describe human choice to fit under the prime datum.

The odd thing is that scipture in no place explains the metaphysics behind the paradox of human choice and divine soveriegnty. But holders of both theologies have attempted to do so, and that is exactly the space in which most of the arguments ensue. Both sides have scriptures to back up ther claims. Both have created logical explanations of how the pardox can be resolved (even though scripture does not fully explain it). So in my view, both theologies fall short in some way, because the attempt to explain things scripture itself does not explain

The most we can say is that there is no contradiction. A contradiction is where something is A and not A at the same time, in the same sense,and in the same relationship. A paradox is something that can appear at first glance to be a contradiciton, but is not when examined further. The tension between human choice and divine sovereignty is a paradox. Scripture does not say God is soveriegn, but not soveriegn. Scripture does not say people make choices, but do not make them.

The most we can say is that God's sovereignty over all things and peoples ability to make real decisions interact in such a way as to not negate each other. We do not however have the full explanation. So the most we can do is affirm both, but be careful of defining them too stringently so as to create an apparent contradiction, or to lessen one or the other so that they no longer fit what the Bible actually says.

AMEN AND AMEN!! This is what I've been trying to say so often in this thread -- it is NOT either or -- it is BOTH!! I put it at God's perspective and our perspective, but as I've repeatedly said -- all Scriptures in both camps are in the Bible and they are all true!! I've also said that the way I see it (God's perspective and my own) is just my own attempts to get a handle on it, but that the Bible simply mentions all Scriptures in both camps. I'm glad I am not the only one to see that!!

Rhonda

[Rhonda Lou]

Colossians 2:13a says, "And you, being dead in your trespasses..." How can a dead person believe? "A person in the flesh cannot perceive God: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed CAN BE." (Romans 6:8) "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; NOR CAN HE KNOW THEM, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14) How can one who CANNNOT understand the things of God be saved? Romans 3:11-12 and 23 says, "11No one understands [no one intelligently discerns or comprehends]; no one seeks out God, 12All have turned aside; together they have gone wrong and have become unprofitable and worthless; no one does right, not even one!...23Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives

[rca]

The problem with those that hold both the pure Arminian position and the pure Calvinist position is that they are both typically guilty of a logical error known as duality reductionalism. Typically this occurs where there is a paradox (not a contradiction) in scripture. Scripture affirms 2 things:

1. God is absolutely sovereign over every thing that occurs (including the process of salvation)

2. Human beings make real decisions for which God holds them morally accountable and that have real consequences

The problem comes when holders of one position or the other raise one of these statements of scripture to the status of prime datum and force the other statement to fit underneath it. Arminian theologians typically do this with the concept of human choice. They make this the prime datum (even though the scriptures do not) and force all passages dealing with sovereignty to fit the prime datum or they are ignored all together (as was the Acts passage folks asked about earlier). Calvinist theologians do the same thing with sovereignty. They raise it up and force passages that describe human choice to fit under the prime datum.

Regarding just the Acts passage (Acts 13:48) I gave the definition of "ordain" from the Greek Lexikon.

Now the word "ordained" can be studied closely in the original language using the Greek NT Lexikon. When you go to http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=5021 it defines the Greek Word "tasso" translated as "ordained" as follows:

to put in order, to station

a. to place in a certain order, to arrange, to assign a place, to appoint

1. to assign (appoint) a thing to one

b.to appoint, ordain, order

1.to appoint on one's own responsibility or authority

2.to appoint mutually, i.e. agree upon

The last possible definition is "to appoint mutually". So I do not see how this particular verse can prove either Calvinism or Arminianism on its own if it were the only verse in Scripture.

[EricH]

Let me give y'all an example of what I am talking about. David numbered Israel and as a result Israel was punished by God. Classic Calvinists would say that this falls under God's sovereignty. Classic Arminians would say David made a choice and God reacted to the choice David made. Here is what scripture says:

In 1 Chronicles 21:8 we read that David took direct responsibility for the act:

David said to God, "I have sinned greatly because I have done this thing. Now, because I've been very foolish, please take away your servant's guilt."

(1Chronicles 21:8 HCSB)

This fits nicely in the Arminian framework. David took an action, and God held him responsible (And David did himself)

But then we read regarding this same event:

The LORD's anger burned against Israel again, and it stirred up David against them to say: "Go, count the people of Israel and Judah." (2 Samuel 24:1 HCSB)

This fits more into the Calvinist understanding of God's being sovereign over everything. He moved on David to number the people so He could judge Israel.

Now we see yet another pespective:

Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel. (1Chronicles 21:1 HCSB)

Now we see that the direct agent used to incite David was Satan. Are these three perspectives on the same even contradictory? Hardly! We can see that David made a real decision, for which God held him accountable. We also see that David's decision was not made in a vacuum. God's purposes were in play so that the writer could say that it was God who moved David to act the way he did (with out violating David's volition, yet preserving God's absolute sovereignty and purposes in the matter). We also see that the agent God used was Satan (affirming that although God is not the author of evil, He is sovereign over it). Notice David takes personal responsibility for his actions (and God allows him to do so), yet this in no way interferes with God's sovereignty in the matter. Scripture never explains how these three things operated together in the event. It just says that they did.