The Arminian Creed(?)

This tongue in cheek creed comes from an hilarious order of service from a (otherwise unimaginative) calvinist website, (HT Justin)

“I believe in God who once was Almighty, but sovereignly chose not to be sovereign; and in Jesus, my personal Lord and Saviour, Who loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life, Who came into my heart when I asked him to, and is now seated at the right ventricle of my belief in Him, Who walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way, and tells me I am His own, Who shall come again with secrecy to rapture us out of here, Whose Kingdom shall last one thousand years; And in the Holy Ghost, who did some weird stuff at Pentecost, but doesn’t do much more anymore except speak secretly to the hearts of individual believers. And I believe in this local, independent, and powerless church, insofar as it is in line with my personal interpretation of the Bible and does stuff! like; in one believer’s baptism for the public proof of my decision for Christ; and in giving my personal testimony for soul winning. And I look for the identity of the Antichrist, and know that the Last Days are now upon us. Ay-men.”

Meanwhile John Hobbins calls us to a more excellent way out of the Arminian/Calvinist debate.

God Changes The Past All The Time

Roger Olsen has an interesting post wondering why calvinists don't think it limits God if he cannot change the past.  But both Olsen and his calvinist sparring partners are wrong, God changes the past all the time, it is just no one ever notices because he changes our memories too! 

However, there are some tell tale signs that this goes on more than we realise.  For example, thousands of years ago when Moses wrote Genesis the world had only taken 6 days to make, but today if you examine the planet and its surrounding environs you can see it took around 40 Billion years to make.  Or if you read ancient documents you would see that the Sun used to rise up in the sky and go down at night, but today it is Earth which rolls around the Sun.  The only possible explanation is that what used to be really was then, but then it got changed retrospectively and now we are living with a new version of the past.  QED.

Of course the nice thing about having a changeable past is that when we argue about what really happened back then, we can both be right!  And as far as I remember I never lent you that $20.

Roger Olsen's Anti-Militant-Calvinist Manifesto

. . . is well worth a read.  He starts like this,

For many years I had no particular bone to pick with Calvinism. I required my students to read Calvin (as I still do) and Calvinist theologians, and invited Calvinists into my classes to explain their theology (as I still do). Some of my relatives are Calvinists, as have been many of my friends. Then something new began to happen. One day in the early 1990s I read an article on line in which a leading Reformed theologian stated that a person cannot be both evangelical and Arminian. He equated Arminianism with Roman Catholic theology and called it semi-Pelagianism.

If this were an isolated incident that would be one thing. But relatively quickly this sentiment about Calvinism and Arminianism began to sweep through evangelicalism. And the Calvinism being promoted as synonymous with evangelical Christianity itself was and is a particular strain of Calvinism that highlights and underscores double predestination.

You can't comment on the webpage so feel free to do so here! :-)

Here's one for the Calvinists

Lest I be accused of allowing Xenos to be a little one sided,

HT

Does Predestination Make Sense?

Where we run into difficulties is when we try to reconcile Biblical statements about God’s love with theological systems attempting to comprehend predestination. It’s an old problem that has vexed people from Erasmus to the present day (and one I feel no desire to rehearse here). The problem is, the Bible everywhere assumes that human action and decisions are free, that is, unconstrained by a prior divine decision, and thus humans can and should be held responsible for their behavior. Even so, most reformed theological systems find a way to make room for human freedom and responsibility under an overarching if mysterious divine predestination. This of course makes no sense.

 - William Black,  Read the rest here, HT

Blog Plug: William Birch

Happy to have found a new-to-me blog where a learned Southern Baptist Arminian takes to task such luminaries as Albert Mohler and Michael Patton with great aplomb.  I dropped a cheeky remark on Patton's post on prevenient grace myself and really need to do a proper response to the reply I got, sadly I think the carnival is going to be taking up any blog time for the rest of the week.  Do check him out if that is your cupatea.

The Calvinist Dilemma

A calvinist arrives at Heaven's gates and sees that there are two queues going in.   One is marked "predestined," and the other is marked "free will."  Being a good calvinist he wanders over to the predestined line.  After a few minutes an angel asks him, "why are you in this line?"  He replies, "I chose it."  The angel looks surprised, "well then, you should be in the free will line."  So our calvinist, now slightly miffed, obediently wanders over to the free will line.  Again, after a few minutes another angel asks him, "why are you in this line?"  He sullenly replies, "Someone made me come here."

Thanks to Norman for that

What's wrong with the TULIP?

In honour of my latest addition to my blog list I have decided to post on TULIP, the acronym most often associated with Calvinism. I came across this blog after discussing with my teacher, colleague, and friend Dr. Myk Habets about a book project he is working on, on the subject of defining an "Evangelical Calvinism." This is in opposition to "Federal Calvinism" which they see as a legitimate extension of Calvinism, but not the only legitimate one, and not necessarily the best. I was raised an Arminian, which people often forget is a type of Calvinism, but it was the branch of the family that TULIP was designed to refute (a century after Calvin). I no longer call myself by any label, other than the hopelessly vague "Evangelical." Part of what the nascent "Evangelical Calvinist" movement is trying to do is to reframe the tenets of "Federal Calvinism" away from the un-Calvin obsession with covenant and towards a more Calvinesque obsession with Christ. An initial attempt to reframe the TULIP is made here.

What is the TULIP?

• Total Depravity (of fallen humanity)
  
• Unconditional Election (of God's people)
  
• Limited Atonement (for humanity by Christ)
  
• Irresistible Grace (of God)
  
• Perseverance (of God's people, i.e. they cannot lose their salvation)
  

What is wrong with TULIP?

Total depravity can either be taken to mean that humanity is totally depraved or that every part of humanity is touched by sin. A biblical view of humanity, IMHO, should never forget that humanity was first made in the image of God (Imago Dei) and that the fall never took that away. Just as every area of human life is touched by sin and has potential for evil, every area has an equal (or greater) potential for good. So while total depravity in a limited sense is possible good doctrine, it certainly should not be the first point you make about either humanity (anthropology) or God's salvation (soteriology).

That the God of the Bible is an electing God, who chooses people according to his own often secret agenda is proven by innumerable proof-texts and the overall narrative of scripture. But it needs to be said that this same scriptural narrative often portrays even the people whom God has chosen falling out of God's favour. Unconditional Election merely affrims that God's electional is not based on any criteria that a human has any hope of fulfilling by choice, God's choice therefore doesn't come with strings attached!

IMHO, Limited Atonement is the most hateful of doctrines in the TULIP sequence. This is the idea that Christ did not die for everyone but only those that would be saved, it argues that there are rafts of humanity out there who simply cannot be saved because Christ's atonement does not cover them. The motive behind this doctrine is to avoid suggesting that God could be thwarted in his desire to save. If God wants to save everyone but can only save some, that would suggest God is weak or incompetent. Thus Limited Atonement suggests that God must only have intended to save some. However, to my mind this doctrine does far more harm by limiting the availability of God's grace and love, and is not the solution to the problem of those who do not respond to the Gospel.

The Irresistible Grace of God is a doctrine that argues that if God desire to save someone they cannot get out of that salvation. In one sense I have no problem with this as it is manifestly true. On the other hand I do not think this necessarily means therefore that God simply hasn't willed to save those who are not saved. I think we need to affirm that God's grace can be and often is resisted, but that the human capacity to resist that grace is in fact evidence of that grace. God's gift of autonomy and free volition to humanity.

The Perseverance of the saints, God's elect people, is an interesting one. People obviously do fall away from time to time, is it "once saved, always saved" or simply that those who fall away show they were never saved in the first place? Personally I feel the NT emphasis on perseverance as something to be done rather than something to be assumed speaks against this. Likewise the OT emphasis on Covenant Nomism.

Now that was a big post and I am aware with some more time I should probably give you some Bible verses and stuff, but hopefully you can see what I am getting at and where I am getting it from? In case you are still wondering where I stand, I do like Calvin, from what little I have read, but I don't like TULIP, as far as I understand it correctly. Let me know what you think :-)

P.S See also this post on Myths and Urban Legends about Calvin and for a more polemical piece Evangelical Calvinism is an Oxymoron