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 [...]

Calvinist Prayer (and many other things) Explained

Application 2: God ordains means as well as ends. God is the Author. This is his story. We are his characters. Therefore, Be a faithful character in God’s story.* Taken from a sermon by Joe Rigney defending the purpose of prayer in a world exhaustively pre-determined by eternal divine decree [you can find a link [...]

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 [...]

A Well Expressed and Concise Comment on the Fundamental Problem With Calvinist “Sovereignty”

Of course, when Calvinists speak of sovereignty, they are referencing their own bizarre definition of sovereignty which is synonymous with exhaustive decretal determinism.  While Calvinists hold to this definition of sovereignty (what they often call “absolute” sovereignty), they have a hard time speaking and thinking in a consistent manner with all that view of sovereignty entails.  Thankfully, [...]

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 [...]

“Saved by Grace”- Through Faith

Not surprisingly, a Calvinist has taken issue with my recent critique of Paul Washer’s arguments for unconditional election.  This Calvinist, who goes by the moniker, “Saved by Grace” (SBG), left a very lengthy and detailed comment after reading my post, rebuking me for misrepresenting Calvinism and for failing to rightly interpret numerous passages of Scripture.  [...]

Nelson’s Dictionary of Christianity Gets it Wrong: Examining the So Called “15 Major Tenets of Arminianism”

About a year ago I engaged in a conversation with someone who kept misrepresenting Arminian and Wesleyan teaching while insisting that his claims were “historical facts”.  This person kept making reference to the “15 Major Tenets of Arminianism” to back up his claims.  I had no idea what this could be a reference to since [...]

Arminius Speaks: Essential Writings on Predestination, Free Will, and the Nature of God (Book Review)

John D. Wagner has provided another valuable resource for all those interested in the Calvinist and Arminian debate.  Arminius Speaks is a compilation of Arminius’ writings particularly focused on election and salvation.  Unfortunately, Arminius is often maligned but rarely quoted or directly interacted with by his detractors.  His views have been misrepresented and misunderstood by [...]

Wondering With Calvinists

I often wonder at how Calvinists seem to shelve their deterministic doctrines and essentially adopt the contrary doctrines (of Arminianism) while trying to argue against Arminianism.  I see this all the time in modern print and on the internet, but it was no less a problem long ago.  The following is a quote from a Calvinist against the [...]

More On the Authorship of Sin (Part 3)

In parts one and two of the authorship of sin series (as well as the post that kicked it off), we examined some of the Calvinist defenses against the charge of their making God the author of sin, as well as some of the counter-objections they raise to the Arminian view. As was shown therein, [...]