Arminianism

The theological stance of James Arminius and the movement which stemmed from him. It views Christian doctrine much as the pre-Augustinian fathers did and as did the later John Wesley, and then later still Charles Finney. In several basic ways it differs from the Augustinian fathers, and as did the later John Wesley. In several basic ways it differs from the Augustine-Luther Calvin tradition.

This form of Protestanism arose in the United Netherlands shortly after the "alteration" from Roman Catholicism had occurred in that country. It stresses Scripture alone as the highest authority for doctrines. And it teaches that justification is by grace alone, since it is only through prevenient grace that fallen humanity can exercise that faith.

Arminianism is a distinct kind of Protestant theology for several reasons. One of its distinctions is its teaching on predestination. It teaches predestination, since the Scripture writers do, but it understands that this predecision on God's part is to save the ones who repent and believe. Thus its view is called conditional predestination, since the predetermination of the destiny of individuals is based on God's foreknowledge of the way in which they will either freely reject Christ or freely accept him. Calvin and Augustine didn’t understand this very simple Bible concept!

Arminius defended his view most precisely in his commentary on Romans 9, Examination of Perkins' Pamphlet, and Declaration of Sentiments. He argued against supralapsarianism, popularized by John Calvin's son-in-law and Arminius's teacher at Geneva, Theodore Beza, and vigorously defended at the University of Leiden by Francis Gomarus, a colleague of Arminius. Their view was that before the fall, indeed before man's creation, God had already determined what the eternal destiny of each person was to be. Arminius also believed that the sublapsarian unconditional predestination view of Augustine and Martin Luther is unscriptural, as it obviously is! This is the view that Adam's sin was freely chosen but that, after Adam's fall, the eternal destiny of each person was determined by the absolutely sovereign God. In his Declaration of Sentiments (1608) Arminius gave twenty arguments against supralapsarianism, which he said applied also (to some degree) to sublapsarianism.

These included such arguments as that the view is void of good news; repugnant to God's wise, just, and good nature, and to man's free nature; "highly dishonorable to Jesus Christ"; "hurtful to the salvation of men"; and that it "inverts the order of the gospel of Jesus Christ" (which is that we are justified after we believe, not prior to our believing). He said the arguments all boil down to one, actually: that unconditional predestination makes God "The author of sin."

Connected with Arminius's view of conditional predestination are other significant teachings of "the quiet Dutchman." One is his emphasis on human freedom. Here he was not Pelagian, as some have thought. He believed profoundly in original sin, understanding that the will of natural fallen man is not only maimed and wounded, but that it is entirely unable, apart from prevenient grace, to do any good thing. Another teaching is that Christ's atonement is unlimited in its benefits. He understood that such texts as "he died for all" (II Cor. 5:15; cf. II Cor. 5:14; Titus 2:11; I John 2:2) mean what they say, while Puritans such as John Owen and other Calvinists have understood that the "all" means only all of those previously elected to be saved. A third view is that while God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (I Tim. 2:4; II Pet. 3:9; Matt. 18:14), saving grace is not irresistible, as in classical Calvinism. It can be rejected. (What preacher doesn’t know this?)

In Arminius's view believers may lose their salvation and be eternally lost. First let's define the term "saved" what do we mean when we say are you saved? The Bible says that Jesus came to save us from SIN! You will not find one scripture that says Jesus came to save us from "Hell" Read Matthew 1:21 "And she shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name JESUS: for He shall save his people from their sins." Now Jesus came to saves us from sin, if we still have a practice of sin in our life, regardless of what we believe, we are "lost." The Bible speaks of ultimate salvation as something that will happen when we are taken from this life, and placed in the next. So you can see why Arminius believed we could be "lost," if we again go back into a practice of sin, we are in need of saving! At least as far as the salvation that the Lord Jesus Christ came to perform!

Some of the scripture that Mr. Arminius often Quoted to support this position, such passages as I Pet. 1:10, "Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election, for if you do this you will never fall," also Hebrews 10:26-31 "For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Arminians seek to nourish and encourage believers so that they might remain in a saved state (not have a practice of sin.) While Arminians had been rather successful in disinclining many Calvinists from such views as unconditional election, limited atonement, and irresistible grace, he realized that it is difficult to get people to deny themselves, and pickup the cross, in order to follow Jesus. R. T. Shank's Life in the Son and H. O. Wiley's three-volume Christian Theology make a good scriptural case against eternal security. This position has been fighting an uphill battle with Calvinists, and all of the professing Christings that do not read and believe the Bible, who instead listen to the teachings of men.

A spillover from Calvinism into Arminianism has occurred in recent decades. Thus many Arminians whose theology is not very precise, say that Christ paid the penalty for our sins. Yet such a view is foreign to Arminianism, which teaches instead that Christ suffered for us. Arminians teach that what Christ did, He did for every person; therefore what He did could not have been to pay the penalty, since no one would then ever go into eternal perdition. Arminianism teaches that Christ suffered for everyone so that the Father could forgive the ones who repent and believe; His death is such that all will see that forgiveness is costly and will strive to cease from anarchy in the world that God governs. This view is called the governmental theory of the atonement. Its germinal teachings are in Arminius, but his student, the lawyer-theologian Hugo Grotius, delineated the view. Methodism's John Miley best explicated the theory in his The Atonement in Christ (1879).

Arminians who know their theology have problems in such cooperative ministries with Calvinists as the Billy Graham campaigns because the workers are often taught to counsel people that Christ paid the penalty for their sins. But it is an important aspect of the Arminian tradition, from Arminius himself, through John Wesley, Charles Finney, and to the present, to be of a tolerant spirit; so they often cooperate in these ministries without mentioning the matter to the leadership. Arminians feel that the reason Scripture always states that Christ suffered (e.g., Acts 17:3; 26:23; II Cor. 1:5; Phil. 3:10; Heb. 2:9-10; 13:12; I Pet. 1:11; 2:21: 3:18; 4:1, 13), and never that he was punished, is because the Christ who was crucified was guiltless, because he was sinless. They also feel that God the Father would not be forgiving us at all if his justice was satisfied by the real thing that justice needs: punishment. They understand that there can be only punishment or forgiveness, not both, realizing, e.g., that a child is either punished or forgiven, not forgiven after the punishment has been meted out.

A spillover into Arminianism from Baptistic Calvinism is an opposition to infant baptism. Until recently the long Arminian tradition has customarily emphasized infant baptism, as did Arminius and Wesley (Luther and Calvin too, for that matter). It has been considered as the sacrament which helps prevenient grace to be implemented, restraining the child until such time as he becomes evangelically converted. Arminians believe that the several household baptisms mentioned in Acts 16-17 and I Cor. 1 imply that infants were baptized, and that this act is the NT counterpart of OT circumcision. Baptizing anyone who has not repented, a baby being a good example, is of no value, it accomplishes nothing.

Biblical inerrancy is another spillover. The Arminian tradition has been a part of the long Protestant tradition which Fuller Seminary's Jack Rogers discusses in his Confessions of a Conservative Evangelical. It is interested in the Bible's authority and infallibility, and expresses confidence that Scripture is inerrant on matters of faith and practice, while remaining open on possible mathematical, historical, or geographical errors. Its scholars in general do not believe that Harold Lindsey correctly interprets the long Christian tradition on Scripture in such works as The Battle for the Bible, when he says that until about 150 years ago Christians in general believed in the total inerrancy of Scripture.

Another spillover is in eschatological matters. Arminianism is not dispensationalist as such, has not committed itself to a given millennial view, and has little interest in specific prophecies (believing God would have us concentrate on what is clear in Scripture: Christ's redemption and a holy life). But many lay Arminians have succumbed to such popular prophetic books as those of Hal Lindsey, which teach unequivocally that present political events and trends fulfill specific biblical prophecies.

A considerable problem to Arminians is that they have often been misrepresented. Some scholars have said that Arminianism is Pelagian, a form of theological liberalism, and is syncretistic. It is true that one wing of Arminianism picked up Arminius's stress on human freedom and tolerance toward differing theologies, becoming latitudinarian and liberal. Indeed the two denominations in Holland that issued from Arminius are largely such today. But Arminians who promote Arminius's actual teachings and those of the great Arminian Charles Finney, whose view and movement have sometimes been called "Arminianism of fire," have disclaimed all those theologically left associations. Such Arminians largely comprise the eight million or so Christians who today constitute the Christian Holiness Association (the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, etc.). This kind of Arminianism strongly defends Christ's virgin birth, miracles, bodily resurrection, and substitutionary atonement (his suffering for the punishment believers would have received); the dynamic inspiration and infallibility of Scripture; justification by grace alone through faith alone; and the final destinies of heaven and hell. It is therefore evangelical, but an evangelicalism which is at many important points different from Calvinism, How fortunate!

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