Response to Comment on "Contradictions to Mainstream Arminianism"

One of the goals of this blog is discussion with you all. As the situations arise, I will use some posts to respond to people's comments. A fellow blogger recently commented on my "Contradictions to Mainstream Arminianism" post. He raised some commonly heard questions toward Calvinism, and I tried my best to give my response. He has not yet responded to my response. Here is his first comment:

Interesting blog, Mr. Roberts. It seems as though you come from either an extremely well-rounded background or you've been completely brainwashed by one-sided philosophy. I felt like your blog had quite a few flaws, beginning with the first paragraph. You seem to hold theologians and college professors at an unsafe level of expertise. Don't look down on people who don't have letters after their names, like me.
Second, I think your interpritation of Ephesians 2:8-9 is stretched at the very least. It is true that Salvation is a gift that we can do nothing to earn, but what of accepting it. God knocks at the door, and anyone who opens it will be received into the family of Christ (Revelation 3:20). So, it is impossible to say that God does not give some a chance, and God does not force his way into our hearts because that would refute our submission to God's will. Finally, what about those God does not "predestine". If one of God's qualities is His perfection, then how could he create a human whose purpose from before conception was to go to hell! That is not a God of love and mercy, but a God whose wrath begins before His grace. Consider 1 Thesselonians 5:9, " For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." Who is to say the foreknowledge, appointment, whatever you wanna call it, is not the very life that we are given by the God who gives us our fisrt breath.
Consider your thesis, divine appointment, to be a "cause" and then consider its natural "effect". If when we're born God has already decided who gets to go to heaven and who doesn't, why evangelize? Why support missionary? Why invite your friends to church or even go to church yourself? In your scenario, it doesn't matter either way...

And here was my response to him:

I am posting my responses as you requested. I’m sorry for the length, but I felt that I needed to address all of your points. I will answer them in the order that you brought them up in your comment to me.Your first point is that my interpretation of Eph. 2:8-9 is stretched. Is it stretched because of the other verses you mention apparently state the opposite? Or is the interpretation stretched within the verse itself? You seem to mean the first, so I will answer that one.
You used the well-known verse, Rev. 3:20 which states, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Many use this verse to prove that salvation comes by us accepting God’s knocking. However, this is a vast misunderstanding of the context of this passage. Rev. 3:20 is a part of paragraph (Rev 3:14-21) addressed to the Church of Laodicea. It is written to believers and is an admonition to a church to, in essence, step it up and get their act together. It is not a verse to unbelievers regarding the way to receive salvation.
Your second point is that, “…It is impossible to say that God does not give some a chance…” Actually, it is possible. There are many examples of this in Scripture, but I will only focus on the more obvious one. Read through Romans 9 and you will find Paul answering the same questions you are asking me. The main part is Romans 9:14-24.
Your third point is about those God did not “predestine”. To begin, no one is predestined to hell, for we all deserve eternity in it from birth as the previously quoted verses say. Next you say that, “If one of God’s qualities is His perfection, then how could He create a human whose purpose from before conception was to go to Hell?!” I have to ask what kind of question this is. Yes, one of God’s attributes is perfection, but this also extends to His perfect wrath. Everything God does is done for one reason, to bring glory to Himself (Rom. 11:33-36). Giving people their just punishment by sending them to hell, brings glory to His perfect justice, and choosing out of this race of sinners those to be adopted as His children, brings glory to His perfect mercy.
Your fourth point is the use of 1 Thess. 5:9 which states, “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Your argument misunderstands the context of not only this verse, but of the whole book. 1 Thessalonians is a letter from Paul to the Thessalonian church i.e. Christians. It is written to believers or those who were, for the most part, already saved. Thus, the verse in context reads, For God did not appoint us (Christians, those He has saved) to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Your fifth point is that the appointment, foreknowledge, predestination etc. mentioned in the Bible could be God giving us our physical lives. This doesn’t hold water because if this was true, consider Rom. 8:29-30 while applying your statement: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” If your argument was true and foreknowledge just meant God giving us physical life, then according to this verse, every human being that has ever lived would be glorified and enter Heaven. To emphasize this point, I will rewrite this verse using your definition of foreknowledge. “For those God gave physical life, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Do you see my point? God’s foreknowledge is not and cannot merely be His gift of physical life to us.
Your final point regards predestination making evangelism obsolete and pointless. If God has already chosen His elect (Eph 1:4-6), what’s the point of witnessing? This is one of the most common, if not clichéd criticisms of Calvinism, and also one of the easiest to refute. Yes, God has already chosen members of humanity to be His children (Rom. 8:29-30, Eph. 1:4-5, 1 Pet. 1:1-2), and the way He has chosen to bring His children to a realization of Him is through the witnessing and preaching of the Gospel (Rom. 10:14), and as told to us by the Great Commission. We evangelize because we are commanded by God to do so. Also, only God knows who the elect are, and therefore we are to proclaim the Gospel to all. God has ordained that men are saved through the preaching of the Gospel. As for me going to church, I have no idea why God’s predestination would nullify this. I go to church because I too need constant reminders of my sin, the Word preached to me and fellowship with other believers (Heb. 10:24-25).
Your comment displays some of the most common criticisms of Calvinism. Unfortunately, most of them also display a deep lack of understanding of both Calvinism and many Scriptures. I again thank you for your comment and hope to discuss other issues with you in the future. I look forward to reading your posts as well.

Thanks

Caleb Roberts

Contradictions of Mainstream Arminianism - Pt. 1

I'm back with you all with a new post. I am beginning a series of posts on the internal contradictions of "mainstream Arminianism". First, I need to clarify my definitions. Although true Arminianism has some definite conflicts with Scripture, it doesn't have any contradictions against itself. What I am referring too is "mainstream", or the "common man's" Arminianism. This is a rather interesting trait of this theology that I have seen. There seems to be two branches of the theology. There's the more logically consistent form, which is held mostly by the more academic type (i.e. some professors and the theologically inclined), then there's the more common form, which is less logically consistent, held by your average-joe churchgoers who are inclined to Arminianism. The contradictions of the latter will be discussed in the next series of posts.

Here's the first contradiction, displayed by two commonly heard statements. The first is, "I am not saved by works, I am saved by grace". The other is, "I got saved when I chose to accept Jesus into my life". Now, even though the spectrum of Protestant Christianity in America is wide, we all, for the most part, still fervently hold on to the anti-Catholic doctrine of salvation by grace put forth by the Reformation Fathers all those years ago. In fact, one could say without much fear of falsity, that no American Evangelical would admit that he/she was saved by works. However, many people after saying that they were saved by grace and not works, will in the next breath say that they were saved by a choice of their free will, as if their choosing is not a work.

In this post, I will attempt to show how, according to the Bible, a free will choice of salvation would be considered a work causing salvation. Let us first look at a very well known verse, Ephesians 2:8-9, which states:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Most Christians know this verse; it has a permanent residence in the group of verses most often quoted to put Christianity in a nut shell. Yet, many misunderstand that last phrase "not by works, so that no one can boast". Most will say something like, "See, right there it says it, we aren't saved by giving to the poor and going to confession and the like". Of course, that statement is absolutely true, but there is much more to that little phrase than initially meets the eye. The "works" that are referred too here are not merely outward expressions of piety, but any action that would give a person room to boast. A free will choice of salvation would fall in this category. If a person believes that a choice of himself brought about his salvation, even if it is a response to prior prevenient grace, he has room to say, "I owe this part of my salvation, how little it may be, to myself". This, course is boasting in the context of the previously listed verse. Ephesians 2:8-9 totally excludes any responsibility on the part of ourselves for our salvation. A free will choice of salvation is nothing less than a work to salvation, for it is from ourselves, so that we would boast.

Taking into consideration our total depravity, and verses such as Eph. 2:8-9, God's predestination and effectual calling is an absolute necessity if the human race is to have any hope of salvation. After all, that is the whole dilemma of humanity; that we are all born wicked sinners, abhorrent to a Holy God, deserving of His Wrath, and incapable of saving ourselves (Romans 3). The solution is also as clear as the problem. God, in His infinite mercy before the foundation of the earth, chose to save some to be brought into His Kingdom as His adopted children (Eph. 1:4-7). Consider Romans 8:29-30, which states:

For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

Note that the verse does not say, "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he waited for their acceptance, those who accepted, he also justified...". No, it is all God's work from the beginning to the end. From our predestination to our glorification, it is the power and grace of God working in us through the whole thing as the keystone verse of this post blatantly proclaims; it is a gift of God, not by us, so that we can't boast.