The following articles have been added to our database. They may be accessed through the topical index (see the left hand column) according to the topic tags listed under each article title:

Romans 9: An Arminian/New Perspective Reading
Bible Passages
Election
Predestination

Academic Orthodoxy and the Arminianizing of American Theology
Arminianism

BIBLICAL CONCEPTS OF SIN
Depravity

CHARACTERISTICS OF WESLEY'S ARMINIANISM
Arminianism
History

Hermeneutical Model for the Wesleyan Ordo Salutis
Arminianism
Hermeneutics
Ordo Salutis

John Fletcher's Influence on the Development of Wesleyan Theology in America
Arminianism
Free Will
Grace
History
Sovereignty of God

John Fletcher's Methodology in the Antinomian Controversy of 1770-76
Arminianism
Calvinism
History

JOHN WESLEY: PRACTICAL THEOLOGIAN?
Arminianism
Calvinism
History

JOHN WESLEY AND JONATHAN EDWARDS ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Arminianism

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Mt 16:24 AV)

On one of the discussion boards I browse through, I noticed a comment by a hard determinist (extremist in my view) who made a bold statement regarding this passage. He indicated that Arminians use this verse to somehow justify a free will mindset focused on doing good works. The comment struck me as uniquely ignorant of how Arminians and most of the body of Christ view this passage. Of course there are variations upon this theme and differences in how the verse should be applied to us however I have never conversed with a fellow Arminian who viewed the passage as focused on works born out of our "free will".

Calvinists love to point out that we are dead in sin. That we are dead in sin prior to conversion cannot be denied (Eph. 2:1, 5; Col. 2:13); the question has to do with what it means to be dead in sin.

Calvinist are fond of comparing spiritual death to physical death. This gives them the framework with which to press their theological conviction that regeneration precedes faith. If being dead in sin means that we are as helpless as physical corpses then we are told that we certainly can no more "hear" the gospel or "see" our need for Christ than a physical corpse can hear or see. But is there any justification for such a strict parallel between the spiritual and the physical?

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. - Genesis 1:27 AV

What does it mean for us to have been made in the image of a Holy Lord God? There have been some who contend it is a past state, lost to the fall of man in the garden. Others have suggested it is an image reserved for those redeemed souls who abide in Christ. Others still have staked a claim in promoting an image formed only in the elect of God from before the foundations of the world. Most of Christianity seems to accept the idea that all of mankind was formed in the image of God and scripture appears to bear this out. When establishing the covenant with Noah, the LORD provided an injunction against murder and its penalty with the following:

In spite of J. I. Packer's allegation that John Wesley was a Calvinist,1 albeit an inconsistent one, Packer himself dodges inconsistency by appealing to antinomy regarding the relationship between God's sovereignty and humanity's free will. Granted, all Christians aim for a consistent theology. And there are verses in Scripture that, most likely, make all systematic theologians squirm. But, in my opinion, Arminianism comes out on top regarding consistency in theology.

Walls and Dongell comments, "There is one version of Calvinism that can clearly be held without contradiction. This is the view that holds with open-eyed consistency that God not only knows the future completely but also controls it in every detail because he has determined everything that will ever happen. Whether he does this by constant direct management or whether he arranged the world in the beginning in such a way that things would inevitably unfold in a particular way does not matter.

I want to talk about culture and why I believe Calvinism has been becoming more popular in the past couple of years.This represents the views of this poster, not all of SEA.

11This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

I wanted to highlight this verse alone, because although it concludes the former section and sets up the next, it is a powerful aphorism as well.

Often we forget that we should love one another. This is especially true when we are part of a in-house debate like Arminianism and Calvinism. Often our Calvinist brothers condemn us, saying that we are heretics and Semi-Pelagian and other false accusations. Often we aren't that much better.

Even though we disagree, and disagree strongly, we need to love each other. We need to disagree in love, desiring one another's health, and recognizing that faith in the gospel and alleigance to Christ is more important than the subtleties of doctrine. The context of this verse is the mark of a Christian: that Christians love their brother. Also, that anyone who does not love their brother is not a Christian. .

So, to sum up, according to the Augustinian/Calvinist interpretation, which assumes faith in Christ for salvation and arises in opposition to Pelagianism and later the medieval Catholic church:

• Paul begins by agonizing over the failure of Israel to come to salvation through faith in Christ (9:1-5).
• Paul’s solution is that not all of Israel is Israel; i.e., not all of Israel is elect (v. 6).
• Paul demonstrates God’s prerogative to elect whomever he wills by having elected Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau (vv. 7-13).
• God has mercy only on those whom he chooses to have mercy, and hardens the rest, as exemplified by Pharaoh (vv. 14-18).
• At this point, Paul hypothesizes a questioner who articulates the Arminian contention: if God has chosen to harden someone like Pharaoh, how can God then judge him for what he was predestined to do (v. 19)? Paul rebukes the questioner for impiety, and uses the potter-clay illustration to reiterate that God has the right to elect some and reprobate some as he deems fit (vv. 20-21).
• Paul then adds, as a supporting argument, the fact that when God chooses to reprobate someone like Pharaoh, he has to bear patiently their sin and arrogance, but does so, in order to demonstrate his glory to his elect, which turn out to be among the Gentiles as well as among the Jews (vv. 22-24).
• He thus brings the discussion back to the issue of Jewish unbelief in Christ, from which his discussion of election has been an excursus.

From that point, the rest of the chapter is interpreted with regard to the Jew-Gentile question and salvation by faith, as opposed to works, without explicit reference to election (vv. 25-33).

Up to this point in this series on Romans 9, I have argued the following points: