BEN: Arminius seems to be clear on the possibility of both intellectual and moral apostasy by a believer. Can you unpack his views for us briefly? Does he take the malicious rejection of Christ or blasphemy of the Spirit by a former believer as the unpardonable sin? KEITH: Some older interpretations have claimed that Arminius did not think it is possible for a true believer to fall from saving grace. This erroneous interpretation is partly based on an inaccurate English… Read more

KEITH: Arminius did agree that the righteousness resulting from this reckoning comes to believers on the basis of Christ’s righteous obedience to the Father. Thus, in a sense, it is Christ’s righteousness that is imputed to us (but not “for righteousness”). Arminius does think that this exchange of sin for righteousness is taught in 2 Cor. 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”… Read more

‘Hey hey we’re the minions, and we’re just minioning around….’ Wait, wasn’t that supposed to be ‘hey hey we’re the Monkees’? No matter the years is 1968, and we are in B.G. time, which is to say, many years before Gru. The minions are desperately searching for a master bad enough for them to serve. But as the opening five minutes of ‘The Minions’ movie makes very clear, they are having a hard time keeping a villainous master. Their hijinks… Read more

BEN: One of the things that is not clear to me from reading your book is the relationship between the Holy Spirit and prevenient grace in the thought of Arminius. Does by grace Arminius simply mean the divine influence of the Holy Spirit in convicting, convincing, and converting people, or does he have a more abstract and even sacramental view of grace? KEITH: There is an intimate relationship between the Holy Spirit and grace. The operation of grace is the… Read more

BEN: Why was Arminius accused of Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism if in fact he was clear that prevenient grace comes to a person purely by unmerited divine initiative? KEITH: This controversy is inherent in the Protestant Reformation itself. To the degree that the magisterial Reformation was a reaction to a perceived works-based salvation, energized by the central insight of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, there was a corresponding degree of worry about anything that seemed to leave room for… Read more

BEN: Why was Arminius accused of Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism if in fact he was clear that prevenient grace comes to a person purely by unmerited divine initiative? KEITH: This controversy is inherent in the Protestant Reformation itself. To the degree that the magisterial Reformation was a reaction to a perceived works-based salvation, energized by the central insight of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, there was a corresponding degree of worry about anything that seemed to leave room for… Read more

BEN: In regard to the old chestnut about God’s knowing and willing it seems clear that Calvin would say God knows it because he wills it, and therefore Calvin makes God’s will (and its exercise in sovereignty) logically prior to God’s knowledge, whereas Arminius insists on just the opposite— God wills things on the basis of what he knows about things. Right? Further, it seems clear that Arminius wants to say that God acts always according to his goodness, his… Read more

BEN: Would it be correct to say that Arminius rejects Calvin’s strong distinction between the secret decrees and will of God and the revealed will of God, which allowed for the possibility that God’s revealed will might appear to contradict his secret or hidden will (e.g. it might appear from Scripture that God desires for none to perish and all to be saved, but in fact in his secret will and decrees God predetermined some to be reprobated)? In other… Read more

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REDISCOVERING KING JESUS— PHILIP JENKINS This year marks a remarkable anniversary in the study of Christian history. Seventy years ago, in late 1945, some Egyptian peasants discovered a trove of early Christian texts including several alternative gospels, all probably buried in the 380s. When they became available in translation in the 1970s, these so-called Nag Hammadi texts caused enormous excitement, suggesting as they did that the earliest Christianity was far more diverse in tone than we might expect from the… Read more