John Piper on God Ordaining All Sin And Evil Part 1: An Arminian Response to Piper’s First “Question”

John Piper preached a sermon on God’s sovereign control over all things.  In this sermon, Piper highly praises the works of Jonathan Edwards and relies heavily on his accounting of sovereignty to explain how God can decree and ordain all evil in this world, and yet not be rightly called the author of all sin [...]

Preach Reprobation and Preach it Hard!

As I noted in my previous post, according to Jesus, far more will be lost than saved (Matt. 7:13, 14).  In Calvinism this can only mean that God has reprobated from eternity far more than He has elected to save.  According to Calvinism, God’s reprobation of most of humanity is “for His glory”.  From this [...]

Does Erwin Lutzer Offer False Hope to Calvinist Parents?

I hope to do a few posts on Erwin Lutzer’s[1] book, The Doctrines That Divide: A Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians.  One might expect that such a book would look to lessen division and ease tension between Christians, but it seems that Lutzer’s purpose is more to present certain divisive doctrines [...]

Paul Washer’s – “Doctrine” of Election: An Arminian Critique

I have been frequently referred to Paul Washer’s video discussion, “Doctrine” of Election.  I found the video transcript and decided it would be beneficial to interact with this apparently influential accounting of Calvinist election.  The sections of the transcript are marked by block quotes with my comments in between.  A copy of the transcript can [...]

How Can God’s Glory be “Diminished” in Calvinism?

Calvinist John Mac Arthur in his article, Why Every Calvinist Should be a PreMillennialist, writes:  It is impossible to fully understand biblical teaching about the end times apart from understanding the future of Israel, the future of ethnic Jews in God’s plan. And if you don’t get Israel right, then your eschatology is confused and you [...]

Some New Must Read Articles at SEA (Abasciano and McCall)

SEA has been diligently providing its readers with excellent Arminian resources.  Recently Dr. Brian Abasciano’s newest theological article on corporate election was made available.  Here is the write-up from SEA [Introducing Dr. Brian Abasciano's "Clearing Up Misconceptions About Corporate Election"]: SEA is excited to announce the addition to our site of Dr. Brian Abasciano’s recently published article [...]

Jack Cottrell’s Critique of Bruce Ware’s Infralapsarian Calvinism

SEA has linked to a few PDF s of Jack Cottrell’s various responses to others from the Perspectives on Election: Five Views book.  Cottrell argues for the Classical Arminian view of individual conditional election based on foreseen faith.  He sees many of the election passages in Scripture as corporate but only as corporate election to [...]

More on the Psychology of Calvinism

Billy Birch has written an excellent post on why certain Calvinists might tend to act the way that they do towards non-Calvinists.  It is also a gentle and necessary reminder to us all to conduct ourselves with grace, compassion, and respect when discussing these controversial topics.  Thanks Billy!

Synergism as a Model for God’s Glory

Several common accusations we hear from Calvinists are that a Synergistic view of faith (as opposed to regeneration) ‘robs God of the glory.’ “It’s man-centered,” they say, “and gives man room to boast in saving himself!” But does such logic really stand up to scripture? Let’s take a look at another important aspect of salvation: sanctification. [...]

What Brings The Most Glory to God Part 2: John Wesley

The following excerpt is from John Wesley’s Predestination Calmly Considered: 48. Your objection, proposed in another form, is this: “It is not so much for the glory of God, to save man as a free agent, I put into a capacity of either concurring with, or resisting, his grace; as to save him in the [...]