THEOLOGY-ARMINIANISM
Since mankind is hopelessly dead in trespasses and sins
and can do nothing to obtain salvation, God graciously restores all men
sufficient ability to make a choice in the matter of submission to Him… In His
foreknowledge He perceives what each one will do with this restored ability,
and elects men to salvation in harmony with His knowledge of their choice of
Him.
Henry Thiessen
Lectures in Systematic
Theology, Eerdmans, 1949, p. 344-345. www.eerdmans.com.
What the
Arminian wants to do is to arouse man’s activity; what we want to do is kill it
once and for all, to show him that he is lost and ruined, and that his
activities are not now at all equal to the work of conversion; that he must
look upward. They seek to make the man stand up; we seek to bring him down, and
make him feel that he lies in the hand of God, and that his business is to
submit himself to God, and cry aloud “Lord save, or we perish!”
Born, as all
of us are by nature, an Arminian, I still believed the old things I had heard
continually from the pulpit, and did not see the grace of God. When I was
coming to Christ, I thought I was doing it all myself, and though I sought the
Lord earnestly, I had no idea the Lord was seeking me.
C.H. Spurgeon
Sermon, A Defense of
Calvinism.
Arminianism
is thus guilty of confusing doctrines and of acting as an obstruction to a
clear and lucid grasp of the Scripture; because it mis-states
or ignores the eternal purpose of God, it dislocates the meaning of the whole
plan of redemption. Indeed confusion is inevitable apart from this foundational
truth.
There are several problems with the Arminian view:
1.
The doctrine of prevenient grace, on which the Arminian
view of conditional election is based, is not found in Scripture.
2.
Note well that there is no reference in [Romans 8:29] to
faith or free will as that which God allegedly foresees in men. It is not what
He foreknows but whom.
3.
[Arminianism] assumes that fallen men are able and
willing to believe in Christ apart from the regenerating grace of God, a notion
that Paul has denied in Rom. 3:10-18.
4.
Would not this view give man something of which he may
boast? Those who embrace the gospel would be deserving of some credit for
finding within themselves what others do not.
5.
This view suspends the work of God on the will of man. It
undermines the emphasis in Romans 8:28-38 on the sovereign and free work of God
who foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, and
glorifies. It is God who is responsible for salvation, from beginning to
end.
6.
Even if one grants that God
elects based on His foreknowledge of man’s faith, nothing is proven. For God
foreknows everything. One must determine from Scripture how man came by
the faith that God foreknows. And the witness of Scripture is that saving faith
is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8-10; Phil. 1:29; 2 Pet. 1:1; 2 Tim. 2:24-26;
Acts 5:31; 11:18).
Sam
Storms
Excerpted from: Arminians and Prevenient Grace, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
If God truly desires for all to be saved in the way the
Arminian contends, and if He knows what it is in the means of persuasion
contained in the gospel that brings people to say yes, why doesn’t He orchestrate
the presentation of the gospel in such a way that it will succeed in persuading
all people to believe? The point is this: Surely the God who perfectly
knows every human heart is capable of creating a world in which the gospel
would prove successful in every case. And if God desires for all to be saved in
the way the Arminian contends, why didn’t He?
Sam
Storms
Arminians and Prevenient Grace, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Since this drawing of people by the Father to the Son is
always efficacious, it cannot refer to the so-called enabling grace of
Arminianism. Do you recall what the Arminian believes? He believes that God
restores in all men a power or an ability sufficient to enable them to come to
Christ. Clearly this “universal enablement” cannot be the drawing that Jesus
describes, Why not? Because millions and millions of men and women do not, in
fact, come to Christ! And yet Jesus says that all who
are given by the Father are drawn by the Father and shall come to Christ. There
is no escaping the clear and unequivocal language of our Lord Jesus Christ: no
one can come unless drawn by the Father; but if one is drawn by the Father he
shall come.
Sam Storms
A Defense of the Perseverance of the Saints – Part I,
November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
On the Arminian view, God’s justice makes it absolutely
necessary that He do for one lost and undeserving sinner what He does for all.
God was obligated by His own righteous character…to provide as much help,
opportunity, and inducement unto salvation for Judas Iscariot as He did for the
apostle Paul. Or, to put it in other terms, God is not sovereignly free to do
for one sinner what He declines to do for another. He must do the same for
both, or He is not just and righteous
Sam Storms
The Arminian Concept of Election. November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Thus the Calvinist says that God elects unbelievers and
predestines them to become believers. The Arminian, on the other hand, says
that God elects believers and predestines them to become His children… The
question…is this: Are faith and
repentance produced by free will and thus the cause of election, or are they
produced by the Holy Spirit and thus the effect of election? According
to Arminianism, election is that act of God whereby He foreordains to eternal
life those whom He foresees will respond in faith to the gospel. According to
Calvinism, election is that act of God whereby He foreordains to eternal life
those who, because of sin, cannot respond in faith to the gospel.
Sam Storms
What is Election? November 6, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
Reformed
theologians say that God deems His own glory more important than saving everyone, and that (according to Romans 9) God’s glory is
also furthered by the fact that some are not saved. Arminian theologians also
say that something else is more important to God than the salvation of all people,
namely, the preservation of man’s free will. So in a Reformed system God’s
highest value is His own glory, and in an Arminian system God’s highest value
is the free will of man.
Wayne Grudem and Jeff
Purswell
Bible Doctrine: essential Teachings of the Christian Faith, Zondervan, 1999, p.
291, www.zondervan.com.
In Matt.
11:25 we read of a prayer in which Jesus said, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and
understanding, and didst reveal them unto babes; yea, Father, for so it was
well-pleasing in thy sight.” In those words He thanked the Father for doing
that very thing which Arminians exclaim against as unjust and censure as
partial.
Loraine Boettner
The Reformed Doctrine Of
Predestination.