{"id":10012,"date":"2010-12-03T18:18:07","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T18:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianwarnock.com\/?p=10012"},"modified":"2018-06-27T23:05:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T22:05:12","slug":"arminians-vs-calvinists-daggers-at-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2010\/12\/arminians-vs-calvinists-daggers-at-dawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Arminians vs Calvinists, daggers at dawn?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It need not always be this way. A while back I posted on the famous Wesley vs Simeon<\/a> encounter which demonstrated that moderate Calvinists and moderate Arminians can in fact agree<\/strong>. If you are not aware of that incident, please do read about it. More recently, Luke picked up on my post which cheekily asked if Spurgeon was an Arminocalvinist<\/a> and commented about me in the following post: \u201cCalvinist Extends Hand of Friendship to Arminians<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0He also linked to a helpful article<\/a> written by an Arminian which is one of the best-argued cases for classical Arminianism I have ever read. The article begins with the frequent assertion of Calvinists that Arminianism \u00a0is man-centered rather than God-centered:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Certainly there is some truth in these criticisms, but their target is wrong when aimed at classical Arminian theology.\u00a0 Unfortunately, all too seldom do the critics name any Arminian theologians or quote from Arminius himself to support these accusations.\u00a0 When they say \u201cArminianism\u201d they seem to mean popular folk religion which is, admittedly, by-and-large semi-Pelagian.\u00a0 Some, most notably Horton, name 19th<\/sup> century revivalist Charles Finney as the culprit in dragging American Christianity down into human-centered spirituality.\u00a0 Whether Finney is a good example of an Arminian is highly debatable.\u00a0 I agree with Horton and others that too much popular Christianity in America, including much that goes under the label \u201cevangelical,\u201d is human-centered<\/strong>.\u00a0 I disagree with them, however, about classical Arminianism about which I suspect most of them know very little.<\/p>\n

What would count as truly God-centered theology to these Reformed critics of Arminianism? First, human depravity must be emphasized as much as possible so that humans are not capable, even with supernatural, divine assistance, of cooperating with God\u2019s grace in salvation. In other words, grace must be irresistible. Another way of saying that is that God must overwhelm elect sinners and compel them to accept his mercy without any cooperation, even non-resistance, on their parts. This is part and parcel of high Calvinism, otherwise known as five-point Calvinism. According to Boice and others theology is only God-centered if human decision plays no role whatsoever in salvation<\/strong>. The downside of this, of course, is that God\u2019s selection of some to salvation must be purely arbitrary and God must be depicted as actually willing the damnation of some significant portion of humanity that he could save because salvation in this scheme is absolutely unconditional. In other words, Calvinism may be God-centered, but the God at the center is morally ambiguous and unworthy of worship. . .<\/p>\n

According to Arminius (and all classical Arminians agree) Calvinism implies that \u201cGod really sins. Because, (according to this doctrine,) he moves to sin by an act that is unavoidable, and according to his own purpose and primary intention, without having received any previous inducement to such an act from any preceding sin or demerit in man.\u201d Also, \u201cFrom the same position we might also infer, that God is the only sinner. For man, who is impelled by an irresistible force to commit sin, (that is, to perpetrate some deed that has been prohibited,) cannot be said to sin himself.\u201d Finally, \u201cAs a legitimate consequence it also follows, that sin is not sin, since whatever that be which God does, it neither can be sin, nor ought any of his acts to receive that appellation.\u201d (\u201cSentiments,\u201d p. 630)
\nREAD MORE<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, here we have two sentiments taught by some Calvinists that Arminians recoil against. The first wrong idea is that God does not desire all men to be saved,<\/strong> that he damns some for his pleasure and saves some for his pleasure, standing equally behind each decision. Well, as Spurgeon pointed out in my quote from him<\/a>, the Bible doesn\u2019t really teach that so many (perhaps most?) Calvinists do not believe that.<\/p>\n

The second point also is that to most Arminian\u2019s, Calvinists teach that God is somehow the author of sin. <\/strong> No wonder they recoil against that since of course sin is not God\u2019s perfect will, and he did not create it!<\/p>\n

It seems even clearer to me from reading this article that that the argument between Arminians and Calvinists really does centre around the issue of God\u2019s sovereignty and man\u2019s responsibility.\u00a0Extreme\u00a0Calvinists deny man\u2019s responsibility to protect God\u2019s sovereignty. Extreme Arminians deny God\u2019s sovereignty to protect man\u2019s accountability for sin. Moderates on both sides of the divide do try and believe in both despite the apparent logical contradiction.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Spurgeon, I believe God must get ALL the credit for man\u2019s salvation but man must get ALL the blame for his damnation<\/strong>. I don\u2019t really care if that statement alienates some of my Calvinist friends, or if it fails to win over some Arminians. \u00a0But I do think that moderates on both sides will agree and in any case we need to remind ourselves that we are brothers. Some parts of the Arminian wing of the church are indeed drifting into liberalism.<\/strong> I suspect that many of our Bible-loving Arminian brothers would reject that as strongly as we reject the evangelistic passivity and hyper-critical tendencies that some on our side of this fence are slipping into<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Maybe, just maybe, even as the reformed charismatic and reformed cessationist wings of the church seem to be enjoying a lot more unity than previously, select Arminians should also receive the right hand of fellowship!<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It need not always be this way. A while back I posted on the famous Wesley vs Simeon encounter which demonstrated that moderate Calvinists and moderate Arminians can in fact agree. If you are not aware of that incident, please do read about it. More recently, Luke picked up on my post which cheekily asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[210,225],"tags":[380],"class_list":["post-10012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arminocalvinist-spectrum","category-calvinism","tag-spurgeon"],"yoast_head":"\nArminians vs Calvinists, daggers at dawn?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It need not always be this way. A while back I posted on the famous Wesley vs Simeon encounter which demonstrated that moderate Calvinists and moderate\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/2010\/12\/arminians-vs-calvinists-daggers-at-dawn\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arminians vs Calvinists, daggers at dawn?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It need not always be this way. 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My qualifications and training reflect this integrated background: \u2192 British MB BS medical degree (equivalent to an MD in the USA) \u2192 Postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed) \u2192 Theological training courses run by Newfrontiers\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/adrianwarnock\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/author\/awarnock\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Arminians vs Calvinists, daggers at dawn?","description":"It need not always be this way. 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My qualifications and training reflect this integrated background: \u2192 British MB BS medical degree (equivalent to an MD in the USA) \u2192 Postgraduate qualifications in Psychiatry (MRCPsych) and Pharmaceutical Medicine (MFFM, DipPharmMed) \u2192 Theological training courses run by Newfrontiers","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/adrianwarnockpage\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/adrianwarnock"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/author\/awarnock\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/adrianwarnock\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}