This article is taken from a chapter in Hoodwinked and Happy?: Evangelicals, Calvinism , and Why No One’s Answering the Problem of Evil, by Daniel Gracely, published by Grandma’s Attic Press, © 2006.

Please note that the author of this article is not an Arminian, but that we have made the article available because it has some good material related to the Arminian/Calvinist debate. SEA does not necessarily endorse everything in the article

Please click on the attachment to view Daniel Gracely, "Divine Sovereignty"

This article is taken from a chapter in Hoodwinked and Happy?: Evangelicals, Calvinism , and Why No One’s Answering the Problem of Evil, by Daniel Gracely, published by Grandma’s Attic Press, © 2006.

Please note that the author of this article is not an Arminian, but that we have made the article available because it has some good material related to the Arminian/Calvinist debate. SEA does not necessarily endorse everything in the article.

Please click on the attachment to view Daniel Gracely, "Proverbs 21:1".

This article is taken from a chapter in Hoodwinked and Happy?: Evangelicals, Calvinism , and Why No One’s Answering the Problem of Evil, by Daniel Gracely, published by Grandma’s Attic Press, © 2006.

Please note that the author of this article is not an Arminian, but that we have made the article available because it has some good material related to the Arminian/Calvinist debate. SEA does not necessarily endorse everything in the article.

Please click on the attachment to view Gracely, Daniel. "Job 1-2"

Everything is about God in one way shape or form. So my biggest problem with Edwards’ arguments regards the nature of God.

Outline of Edwards' Arguments About the Necessity of the God's Will - Part IV.VII

“Consider the words of Christ to the church at Thyatria [sic.] concerning the prominent woman referred to as ‘Jezebel’ and His servants, who were practicing immorality and pagan customs, doubtless in a religious context after the manner of the cults:

“I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication, and she repented not. Behold I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. (Rev. 2:20-22)”

The subject of the Will of God was a topic of interest for James Arminius. Many have wondered if he was a Molinist. Richard Muller acknowledges that Arminius read from Molina,1 but Arminius never claimed to be a Molinist.

However, Arminius left in his writings the notion that perhaps he was at least influenced by Molina's pattern of thought on what God knows and what God has willed according to that knowledge. Muller noted

The divine knowledge of possibility, since it is knowledge of what things can come into existence, is also a knowledge of the way in which all possibles could exist ideally or perfectly, without defect and a knowledge of impossibility as well. Arminius even argues an order in the divine knowledge of possibles. Thus God knows, first, 'what things can exist by his own primary act.'

“The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Calvinists often appeal to Deut. 29:29 when caught in a theological dilemma. Ask a Calvinist how God can exhaustively determine all things and yet not be the author of sin and you might get an appeal to mystery and a quick reference to Deut. 29:29. Ask a Calvinist how God’s unconditional election doesn’t make His choice of some over others for salvation arbitrary and you will likely get more of the same. Yes, Calvinists love Deut 29:29 as it provides such a convenient theological escape hatch when they are called on to explain aspects of their doctrinal system which appear to be hopelessly contradictory. But have they carefully thought about the teaching of Deut. 29:29 and the problem it poses for their peculiar hermeneutic?

Concerning God's sovereignty and human freedom, Bowman offers the following,

The Reformed tradition's insistence on God's absolute sovereignty is related to its concern for radical aseity [that God is self-originated, self-sustained] . . . both doctrines aim to ensure God's freedom to save humankind, in opposition to any notion of compulsion. If God does not control all events, the reasoning goes, then something beyond God's power can threaten our ultimate destiny.

Monergism.com admitted, "It should be noted that this position [that of Compatibilism] is no less deterministic than hard determinism ~ be clear that neither soft nor hard determinism believes man has a free will." So, the Arminian is not misrepresenting the view of Compatibilists in admitting the same.

For the Compatibilist, the major contention for a libertarian view of human freedom is reduced to a matter of genuine choices. If God foreknew what a person would choose (and we are not speaking of choosing Christ at this point), and only what God foreknows is actually going to happen, then how can one admit that the human being has any real choices? What happens, happens necessarily.

It is no secret that the majority of Arminians hold to what is known as libertarian free will. We believe in such a thing because we see evidence for it throughout the Bible. God gives men and women options from which to choose and calls for them to choose wisely. Many times rewards and punishments, respectively, are distributed according to the choice one makes.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Compatibilism offers a solution to the free will problem." The Arminian, however, is unaware of any problem. But I digress. "This philosophical problem concerns a disputed incompatibility between free will and determinism. Compatibilism is the thesis that free will is compatible with determinism. Because free will is taken to be a necessary condition of moral responsibility, compatibilism is sometimes expressed in terms of a compatibility between moral responsibility and determinism."

What decree is that? The "dreadful" decree I am referring to today is the decree of Reprobation, its consequence being Unconditional Election (for how could there be one without the other?). Now, calling it "dreadful," while I would agree, actually comes not from me or any other Arminian today, but from John Calvin himself!

Calvin wrote, "The human mind, when it hears this doctrine, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated (Bernard, in Die Ascensionis, Serm. 2).

What is it about your theology that you feel you must let go of in order to hang on to something else? Some have claimed that Calvinists must let go of free will in order to hang on to God's sovereignty. Others have said that Arminians have to let go of God's sovereignty in order to hang on to free will. Question: Cannot both be held on to?

Now, some will say that I am starting to sound more like an Amyraldian than an Arminian (http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/amyraldi.htm). Those four point Calvinists want it all! Really, all I am asking is, Why can God not be considered sovereign AND human beings experience free will? After all, Arminians believe this is the common experience we all share in God's world every day. Let me explain.

John Wesley On the Origins of Evil

From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
Barry A. Bryant

One of the more important questions ever confronted by Christian theologians has been how to reconcile the idea that God is loving, good, and just with the presence of evil in the world. The Greek Epicurus summarized the issue well when he asked, "What is the cause of evil?" In answering this question he concluded:

God. . . either wished to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? or why does He not remove them?2

JOHN FLETCHER'S INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WESLEYAN THEOLOGY IN AMERICA

From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
By John A. Knight

Introduction

Not until recent years has the significance of John Fletcher's theology been assessed by interpreters of the history of Christian doctrine. For almost two hundred years his work was eclipsed by the Wesleys and by some in the Calvinistic wing of the 18th century Evangelical Revival in England, except for occasional references by historians and biographers of his contemporaries.

David C. Shipley's perceptive study, "Methodist Arminianism in the Theology of John Fletcher," unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Yale, 1942, was a pioneer work in this country. Particularly in the last two decades others have begun to recognize the importance of Fletcher to the development of Wesleyan theology.1

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.