A Family Argument About Grace
Sooner or later someone asks a growing Christian, “Are you a Calvinist?” A friend hands you a book on election, or a video asks whether God chose you or you chose God. The labels can sound like two teams shouting across a field. Behind them stands a real question: when a sinner is saved, why does he believe, and what part does God's choice play?
Calvinism and Arminianism are the two best-known answers. They carry the names of John Calvin (1509–1564) and Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), and they took their classic shape inside the Protestant state churches of Europe. See Augustine, Calvin, Arminius, and Dort for that story.
Also called Reformed theology. On salvation, the teaching that God unconditionally chose particular people for salvation and surely brings each of them to faith and to final glory.
The teaching that God chose in Christ those He foreknew would believe, that Christ died for all, that grace goes before and enables every right response, and that this grace can be resisted. Most Arminians also hold that a true believer can fall away.
This series states each side in words its own teachers would accept. That is simple honesty. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour (Exodus 20:16) still applies when the neighbor is a theologian. Then it answers from Scripture, verse by verse.
We teach from a non-Calvinistic Baptist position, and it is not Arminian. God chose in Christ to save all who believe. Christ died for all. The Gospel call is sincere and can be resisted. The sinner is dead in sin and cannot save himself, but God enables and commands all to believe. Everyone who believes is kept forever.
Charles Spurgeon, William Carey, and George Whitefield held Reformed views of salvation. John Wesley was an Arminian. Each spent his life preaching Christ to the lost. We will disagree with these views plainly, but we do not call Calvinism or Arminianism a heresy. Doctrinal error requires correction, and error is not always unbelief.
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For Deeper Study
- For CalvinismAmazon Michael HortonReformed. A clear modern case for the five points. Read it beside Olson's companion volume.
- Against CalvinismAmazon Roger E. OlsonClassical Arminian. The companion to Horton's book. We differ with Olson on eternal security.
- Arminian Theology: Myths and RealitiesAmazon Roger E. OlsonClassical Arminian. Explains what Arminians actually teach, from their own sources.
- Chosen by GodAmazon R. C. SproulReformed. A clear, popular case for the Calvinist view.
- Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point CalvinismAmazon David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke, eds.Non-Calvinistic Southern Baptist scholars. Closest to the view taught here.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Augustine, Calvin, Arminius, and Dort
The debate runs from Augustine's answer to Pelagius through Calvin's Geneva to the Remonstrance of 1610 and the Synod of Dort, a story of state churches and their synods that binds no Baptist church and that Scripture alone can judge.
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