Society of Evangelical Arminians: What is Arminianism?
The following is by Dan Chapa of the Society of Evangelical Arminians (SEA). Since theologically serious alternatives to Calvinism seem to be in short supply these days, SharperIron contacted SEA recently about the possibility of representing classical Arminianism for the SI audience. To learn more about the SEA, see their About Us page.
Arminianism is a summary of our understanding of the Scripture’s teaching on salvation. The name comes from Jacob Arminius, who led 17th century opposition to Calvinism, but the idea stems from Scripture and has deep roots in the early church fathers. Many non-Arminians have mistaken notions about Arminianism—as do many Arminians. This post will define and defend the essential aspects of Arminianism (total depravity, resistible grace, unlimited atonement and conditional election), without critiquing Calvinism.
Total Depravity
Both Calvinists and Arminians believe in total depravity—the idea that fallen man requires God’s grace through the beginning, middle and end of the salvation process. Adam’s fall left us unable, of our own strength, to repent and believe or live a life pleasing to God. But total depravity is not utter depravity; the lost don’t commit the worst sins possible on every occasion. Still without God’s grace, sin impacts every aspect of life and we cannot seek God on our own. Rather, He seeks us and enables us to believe.
Resistible Grace
Arminians may vary on exactly how God’s grace works; but all Arminians hold to the necessity of prevenient grace (grace that comes before conversion that enables us to believe). When God’s grace starts drawing us to conversion, we can choose to say no and reject Christ. God hasn’t predetermined repentance and faith; nothing causes these such that rejection is impossible and we cannot choose otherwise. But believing does not earn or cause salvation; God chooses to have mercy on believers.
Arminians find resistible grace in passages speaking of God’s grace and man’s rejection of it. God is seeking, drawing and inviting mankind to Himself (John 1:9, 4:23, 7:17, 12:32, 16:8; Rom. 2:4, Titus 2:11, Rev. 22:17). In Isaiah 5:4, God asks what more He could have done (showing the sufficiency of His grace) and He invites Israel to judge itself (showing the reasonableness of His requirements). The reasonableness of God’s commands and invitations shows that God treats us as if we can obey Him, which implies that we can, and this harmonizes with our moral intuitions.
In Matthew 11:21, Christ says Tyre and Sidon would have repented if the same works He had done in Chorazin and Bethsaida had been done there. Tyre and Sidon were bywords for sinfulness, so they were neither elect nor regenerate. Yet the same divine works would have brought about repentance in them, showing the fitness of God’s works to bring about repentance and placing the difference in man’s response.
Also, the divine lament passages strongly affirm the resistibility of grace (Ps. 81:13; Luke 13:33-34, 19:41). Some passages plainly say people reject and resist God’s efforts to bring them to Him (Gen. 6:3, Jer. 13:11, Ezek. 24:13, Luke 7:30, Acts 7:51). God hardens hearts by turning over people to their own sinful lusts (Rom. 1:18-28). This implies that God’s grace was softening their hearts and restraining their wickedness. Additionally, the highly controversial Hebrews warning passages (however interpreted) indicate that God’s grace is resistible (Heb. 2:1-3, 3:6-14, 6:4-6, 10:26-29, 12:15). (Most self-identified “Arminians” have held that true believers can forsake Christ and perish as unbelievers, but the earliest formal statement of Arminian theology—the 5 points of the Remonstrants—expressed uncertainty about the point and, conceptually, it is not an essential tenet of Arminian theology.)
Resistible grace often leads to the controversial question of whether faith or regeneration comes first. Some disagreement stems from defining regeneration. Does regeneration include God’s imparting eternal life to us? Does regeneration include God’s enabling belief? Arminians typically answer yes to the first question and no to the second, so naturally we see faith as preceding regeneration. Ephesians 1:13, John 1:12-13, John 5:24-28, Romans 6:2-6, Galatians 3:2 and 2 Corinthians 3:18 support this order. Notice the issue is which grace enables man to believe (prevenient grace or regeneration) not the depth of man’s depravity without grace.
Scriptures say we have wills and choose (Deut. 30:19, Josh. 24:15, 1 Cor. 7:37). “Choose” is normally defined as “to select from a number of possible alternatives” and we reject imposing on Scripture definitions of “choose” that either remove essential elements or are stipulated philosophical definitions. God tests us—whether we will obey or not—which implies that at least sometimes obedience is up to us (Exod. 16:4). God promises that we will not be tempted beyond our abilities (1 Cor. 10:13), which implies that we can choose to obey or not. God’s desire to have a relationship with free creatures magnifies His love, and His ability to providentially govern and rule a world with free creatures magnifies His sovereignty.
Unlimited Atonement
Christ died for everyone. This is not universalism; the benefits of Christ’s death are conditionally applied, not automatically or necessarily applied. Just as the Passover Lamb was slain and the blood applied, so also we distinguish between Christ’s death and the application of His blood to believers. Christ’s death makes salvation possible for all, and God desires all to believe and be saved through His blood, but only believers are actually cleansed by Christ’s blood.
We see conditionality in the application of Christ’s blood because justification is by faith (Rom. 3:21-26) and because Christ died for some who ultimately perish. Christ said to all the apostles, including Judas, my blood is “shed for you” (Luke 22:21-22). The apostates in Hebrews 10:26-29 were sanctified by Christ’s blood. The false prophets in 2 Peter 2:1 denied the Lord that bought them. 1 John 1:7 and Colossians 1:22-23 plainly teach conditionality in the application of Christ’s blood.
The many passages saying Christ died for the world or all men ground our belief that Christ died for everyone (John 1:29, 3:16-17, 4:42, 6:33, 6:51, 12:47; 1 John 2:1-2, 4:14; 2 Cor. 5:14-19; Heb. 2:9; 1 Tim. 2:4-6, 4:10). While “world” has a broad range of meanings, that range does not include any definition that would avoid the conclusion that Christ died for everyone, nor do we see validity in inventing a specially plead definition of world to avoid unlimited atonement. We see Christ’s sacrifice for all as the foundation of the sincere offer of the gospel to all in that everyone can be saved through what Christ accomplished on the cross.
Conditional Election
God gave pre-fallen Adam the ability to obey Him—He wanted Adam to be free to have a relationship with Him. God did not causally determine Adam’s sin such that he couldn’t obey and necessarily fell—such would be inconsistent with God’s holiness and hatred of sin (James 1:13, Jer. 7:31, Ps. 45:7). Thus, Arminians insist that God is not the author of sin, and free will is essential to Arminian theodicy. Our freedom lies between God and sin; otherwise God is ultimately responsible for sin.
In election, God considered man as fallen sinners. God chooses to have mercy (Rom. 9:16). Scripture calls the non-elect vessels of wrath, or appointed to wrath (Rom. 9:22, 1 Thess. 5:9). Now mercy on the one hand, and wrath on the other, presuppose sin. So Arminians view election as fixing the sin problem, rather than seeing the fall as something God planned in order to accomplish His goal of sending His chosen to heaven and the rest to hell.
Election automatically excluded unbelievers. So we see symmetry in some essential respects between election and non-election. Hellfire is a punishment for sins, so rejection is conditional on unbelief and impenitence.
Freely fallen sinners is one starting point in explaining election—God’s amazing love is another. He does not desire the death of the wicked, nor is He willing that any should perish, but rather He wills all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. (Ezek. 33:11, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Tim. 2:4-6). God’s love of the world moved Him to send His Son so that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16-17). Given man’s fall, the Father chose His Son as the basis and foundation for salvation, and our election is in Him (Matt. 12:18; 1 Pet. 1:20, 2:4; Eph. 1:4).
Just as rejection is conditional, based on sin and impenitence, election to salvation is likewise conditional, not based on works or merit, but based on God’s choice to have mercy on believers. Scripture describes predestination as God’s choosing to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:21, 2:7); election is said to be in sanctification and in belief in the truth (1 Pet. 1:2, 2 Thess. 2:13). Conditional election includes God’s plan from before time to save through the gospel. Before the foundation of the world, God, in Christ, chose to glorify Himself by saving believers out of fallen mankind.
While all Arminians agree that election is Christocentric and conditional, Arminians may disagree on whether election is primarily corporate (election of the Church as a group with individuals sharing in the group’s election by faith) or primarily based on God’s foreknowledge of each individual’s faith.
Closing Thoughts
When I was first challenged by a Calvinist friend regarding Romans 9, I couldn’t explain the passage. And since his explanation made sense, I reluctantly accepted Calvinism. Then one night, I was shocked by the warning in Hebrews 10 and decided to devote time to digging into Scripture on the issues. I studied for years and came out of that process an Arminian. It was difficult; Arminian resources were scarce and Arminians scarcer still. SEA fixes all of that, giving us resources and a community in which to build each other up. Space hasn’t permitted a detailed exegesis of each of the passages cited, but much more detail is available on the SEA website.
danchapa Bio
Dan Chapa was saved at an early age and Christ is the most important part of his life. He has attended independent or Southern Baptists Churches his entire life. His main ministries have been evangelism and teaching Sunday school, but he has also enjoyed discussing Calvinism/Arminianism over the years. He is a member of SEA and blogs at arminianchronicles.com. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and two boys.
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[G. N. Barkman] It seems that the similarities become smaller, and the differences greater as we define issues more carefully…But an honest dealing with Scripture requires that we accept Unconditional Election. That is what God does because He is Sovereign. That is what the Bible teaches so that we may know that His sovereignty extends to every detail of salvation, not just to a general rule of most parts of His universe. When the Biblical doctrine of election is understood and embraced, our understanding of God grows larger, as well as our understanding of the meaning of grace. Grace is truly unmerited favor in every way.It would seem to me that defining God as sovereign would neither necessarily entail the Calvinistic notion of election nor demand it’s denial would lead to an improper understanding of divine grace. Also, I respectfully note, to reject Calvinism’s understanding of election is not necessaily, as your comment implies, an indication that one is not dealing honestly with Scripture.
God can still be sovereign although its extension to every detail may be denied and conditional election is affirmed. Grace remains unmerited although man is required to do what God will not do for him, that is, believe the Gospel. The problem may lie not with the Scriptural declarations of divine sovereignty and man’s freedom of the will but in one’s understanding of how each is to be viewed/defined within its Biblical framwork.
As such, it still seems to me and I agree that while the similarities may be affirmed on the surface between Calvinism and Arminianism, e.g. the declaration that God is sovereign, looking into the details betray irreconcilable differences.
[Martin_G] To Wayne Wilson,SEA I hope doesn’t focus on Anti-Calvinists on the internet. The Calvinists have many websites to combat those people.
You said that you would like SEA to focus more on the Anti-calvinists of the internet. What would you like to see? How could we improve in that area in your opinion?
[A.M. Mallett] Arminius himself did not clearly subscribe to the notion that believers could fall away into apostasy although he acknowledged that there is a scriptural case that deserves consideration. He also emphasized the distinction of “true believers” as being the Elect. I do not believe that “true” is used in an empirical manner as opposed to “false” but instead represents faithfulness e.g. I am true to my wife. True believers will persevere. Those who believe for a season thinking they are “true believers fall away. Now, keep in mind the question what distinction is there really to any believer in his own mind? Both the true and temporal hold to similar truths with only the former faithful and obedient in persevering. Place them side by side and I suggest there is no difference to be found in the eyes of men until one or the other moves his eye to something other than the person and work of Jesus Christ. Hence, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling and only through faith in that same person and work.I really appreciat these comments, especially your understanding of what is mant by a “true” believer. It’s very helpful in my understanding of the Bible. Thanks…
[Charlie] I don’t think it’s true that people (which people?) used to reconcile Calvinism and Arminianism through paradox. Such a thing is impossible, since paradox is not contradiction, and between C&A there are contradictions.This is very interesting to me. I’d not thought about Calvinist Baptists not fully embracing Reformed theology. I guess it’s similar to me having been an Arminian Baptist and finding myself a Wesleyan Arminian in the end. It seems that Baptists tend to be hard to pin down with various areas of doctrine which is a strength and a weakness.
On the other hand, many Calvinists have invoked paradox (or antinomy) to explain the compatibility of unconditional election with human responsibility. Examples of this include J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God; Henry Krabbendam, Sovereignty and Responsibility ( http://www.worldevangelicals.org/lausanne/data/resources/Henry%20Krabbe…] read online here ); and James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology.
Ed, as surprising as this sounds coming from me, I completely agree that the emphasis on “Calvinism” does not produce the fruit proponents have proffered. I think that’s because some people have tried to embrace the so-called “5 points” without actually embracing Reformed theology, which grounds and directs those points in a robust, well-balanced manner. These days I’m more wary of Calvinist Baptists than I am of Arminians.
The claim that Reformed Baptists are not really reformed is more an indication of partisanship than history.
Cordially,
Greg Barkman
G. N. Barkman
[G. N. Barkman] There is a long history of Reformed Baptists dating to the early seventeenth century in England. Baptists produced the Calvinist First London Baptist Confession several years before the Westminster Confession appeared.No one has claimed that. I would call LBCF Baptists Reformed, although I’m compelled to point out that, historically, they did not use the title “Reformed” but rather “particular,” since “Reformed” was associated more with particular ecclesiastical bodies. What I meant was that when a dispensational, decisionistic, Lordship-salvation, memorialist, biblicist, 19th-century-taboo-perpetuating Baptist suddenly picks up a few points commonly called “Calvinism,” it does not make him or her Reformed.
The claim that Reformed Baptists are not really reformed is more an indication of partisanship than history.
http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/how-many-points/
My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com
Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin
Thanks for the clarification. Labels can be tricky. Doctrine is what matters. There will aways be differences between Reformed paedo-baptists and credo-baptists. Some who are reformed deny the label “reformed” to all credo-baptists. I thought that might be what you were driving at.
You are correct about the Particular Baptist label. But, I’m not sure that Presbyterians necessarily called themselves “reformed” either, but today we have no trouble doing so.
So, the question boils down to this: how many doctrines must be embraced before the label “reformed” may be employed? Is five-point Calvinism enough? Probably not. Is paedo-baptism necessary? Reformed Baptists would say no. In the end, each must choose his own labels, as there are really no “label police.” (Though some come close to this by insisting on the TR, “totally reformed” designation.) If someone believes his doctrine is sufficiently reformed to want to wear the label, why should others object? I don’t really know of any dispensational Baptists who accept the label “reformed,” even if they are five pointers. In my experience (which is limited), it takes more than the five points before the reformed label is accepted.
Cordially,
Greg Barkman
G. N. Barkman
[Martin_G] What do you mean by “comprehensive”? Do you mean that it expands the whole human race? Or do you mean that it deals with the totality of depravity? I only ask because I would not find the latter to be accurate.I was referring to the entirety of the human race. Which raises another question I’ve wondered about: do classical Arminians differ on when person becomes the recipient of prevenient grace? That is, does it happen at birth or when they hear the gospel or what has been the thinking on that? Also is it generally held that a person receives 100% of that kind of grace at one moment or do some believe it occurs in stages?
No agenda on that, just curious.
(As for “reformed” and when it applies, I get that question surprisingly often. Lately my response is that when a person claims to be Reformed you always have to ask Reformed in soteriology, Reformed in Ecclesiology, Reformed in Eschatology or some combination of the above? I doubt there is any consensus on who is entitled to use the term…. but as Charlie has indicated there are extremes that are obviously not valid. … FWIW, I do not claim to be Reformed, though my soteriology is in that tradition…. to get back on topic, Arminian soteriology (as in, what Arminius taught) is also Reformed)
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Yes, Arminians differ on how they explain prevenient grace. John Wesley seemed to hold to a universal prevenient grace, such that all people at all times are enabled by God to obey His commands and believe His promises. Arminius seemed to take a more staged approached, first, through God’s law, man is brought to a point where he realizes he is a sinner and needs salvation. Then, through the Gospel, He realizes salvation is through Christ and is enabled by God’s grace to believe. If a person is not first brought to fear by the law, then the Gospel simply bounces off them.
In Wesley’s case, PG enables obedience but in Arminius’ case PG uses disobedience to work fear in the unbeliever. It’s interesting to note that the predestination controversy didn’t start over Romans 9, it started over Romans 7, when Arminius said the second half applies to an unregenerate man being brought to conversion by prevenient grace.
Now this difference may well be a matter of focus rather than a substantive disagreement. Arminius also held to some type of gracious enablement to obey the law (albeit imperfect obedience and polluted by a corrupt source). But when he spoke of PG, he was focused on God’s drawing man to salvation.
There will be other related differences between Arminians as well such as the exact nature of original sin, the extent to which unbelievers do ‘good’ works, and is PG necessary to defend God’s justice in continuing to require obedience of fallen man.
God be with you,
Dan
Andrew Henderson
Did Arminius maintain many never receive this grace? (I assume those who never hear the gospel, for example?)
Andrew: with you on Rom. 7… Not sure it says all that much about which view of predestination is correct. I can only see a couple of references in Rom.7 to a previous lost condition… and these are in what looks to me like the first half of the chapter. I can’t believe that the present tense stuff is meant to be understood as actually happening in the past.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
So Dan, am I correct in understanding that to Arminius, prevenient grace comes to people individually as the law does what it does then belief-enabling grace comes thereafter, accompanying the gospel?Yes, that’s correct, it’s individual. All people come under the law at some point in life. If through the law they realize they are a sinner and need salvation, then God would enable them to believe the gospel. But not everyone that hears the gospel is able to believe, especially those who resist God’s law and don’t think they need salvation.
Did Arminius maintain many never receive this grace? (I assume those who never hear the gospel, for example?)Arminius didn’t say that but he did say not everyone who hears the gospel is able to believe it.
As far as ‘those who never hear’, I grant that as far as we can tell, some people die without having ever heard, but we don’t know for sure there are some people that die without ever hearing. The bible simply doesn’t say much about that topic and while there is much speculation and some theories (i.e. Vatican II style inclusivism) can be shown to be contrary to scripture, some theories seem like legitimate options though none seems so solid as to warrant holding to it dogmatically.
God be with you,
Dan
Romans 7:9 hints that there’s something interesting going on with Paul’s use of I, because he seems to be talking about before and after the giving of the Mosaic law. Broadly, Romans 7 is about the law and one sub-point involved is that the law was intended to bring life but brings death. This fits nicely with the idea that Paul is speaking of himself as representative of Israel, but not of himself of representing the church.
Some might object that Paul must mean himself in the present based only on the fact that he uses I in the present, how would they explain Romans 3:7? There’s precedent for people speaking of themselves as representatives for Isreal in the OT (i.e. Jeremiah 10:19-22) and this form of expression remains imbedded in Jewish thought today as can be seen in the Passover right written in the first person - “I was a slave in the land of Egypt”. http://www.best-meaningful-gifts.com/passover-haggadah.html link
God be with you,
Dan
FYI, the folks at SEA and I are talking about future interactions on the subject, so there will likely be more essays coming from this perspective in the not-too-distant future.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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