Arminianism and Calvinism: Part 1

I haven't written on this subject because I feel there are already plenty of posts on this subject written by those smarter and with far more training in this area than myself.  However, recently I received a request from a friend of mine to write back to him on this issue and help him understand the two points as he wanted to understand where he stood in this discussion.  Also, as a Southern Baptist, this is a subject that is very important within our churches and our convention.  Unfortunately this debate has become far more divisive than it needs to be, and so I thought I would write a few posts to help clarify the issues for those who are just beginning to learn about these two positions.

A first point must be made that cannot be stressed enough: neither of these positions will save anyone.  This is a debate within the Christian community that revolves around soteriological (soteriology is the study of doctrine of salvation) issues, but being a Calvinist or being an Arminian does not mean you are going to heaven.  Faith in Christ saves a man, and it is possible to understand the soteriological implications of both of these positions (that means you understand how these positions impact one's view of how salvation happens) and take a strong stance on either of them and still not have faith in Christ.  Salvation is not granted by theological acumen, sound argument, or the adherence to traditions that have come from the early church.  Salvation is a gift of God, coming by faith, which faith understands the truth of the Gospel and looks to Christ as the author and perfecter of faith, the only path of redemption for a fallen humanity.

With that being said, these positions are also both within the realm of Christian orthodoxy.  One may be an Arminian or a Calvinist and still be a brother or sister in Christ.  Yes, some of the theological ramifications that develop from these systems will lead to differences in teaching that would lead to some divisions within the church.  But neither of these positions should so divide those within the faith that they would cast one another out or begin screaming "Anathema!" at those who hold to the other view.  In the end this is a discussion within the family of Christ.

Understanding this is an "in-house" discussion, I would like to devote this first post to understanding the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism.  Unfortunately both sides tend to paint the other with an unfair brush, often leading to straw man arguments, or at least less than accurate portrayals of the two theological systems.  Arminians often describe Calvinism in a way that makes it seem that Calvinism necessarily leads to a view of God as a capricious, even petty deity.  Calvinists, on the other hand, tend to discuss Arminianism in a way that makes it seem as though every Arminian is, at best, a semi-Pelagian, and at worst a full blown Pelagian.  (Don't worry if you don't understand some of the terms here, just know that Pelagianism has been condemned by the church as heresy, and Arminianism is not Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism.)  In order to have a conversation about these two systems we must first look to them honestly so as to understand where they differ.

Here is where the Calvinist and the Arminian agree:  No one comes to faith apart from the working of the Spirit of God.  The Calvinist and the Arminian both recognize what I opened with in regards to Salvation:  Salvation is a gift from God.  This means no one comes to God apart from God calling that person to Himself.  This is where Arminianism differs from semi-Pelagianism.  The Arminian does not say that men do all they can and then God must call them the rest of the way, rather the Arminian, along with the Calvinist, says that God is the one who initiates the call of men to himself.  This is important because it is an area where many Calvinists tend to misrepresent what Arminians actually hold to.

Now, at the same time the Arminian and the Calvinist agree that God must call men to himself, they disagree as to the effectiveness of this call.  The Arminian holds that God calls men to himself, but that the man may then resist or respond to the call, thus resisting the desire of God to save him, or aligning his will with that of God and being drawn to relationship with his creator.  For the Calvinist though the idea that man can ultimately resist the will of God is foolishness, for the nature of God being sovereign means that he will accomplish saving those he desires to save.

This necessarily points to another area where the Calvinist and the Armenian disagree, that is what it means to be one of the "elect."  The Arminian argues the elect is the one who has faith.  Thus if you have faith in Christ you are one of the elect.  The idea of election is based upon God's looking forward to see who will  respond in faith to the Spirit's call, and thus those who have faith are the elect.  Again the Calvinist sees this quite in the opposite, arguing that those who are elect are the ones who will have faith.  The Calvinist says that God has determined whom he will effectively call to himself, he has elected to save those individuals as an act of great mercy and thus the elect are those who will have faith in Christ, and their election is in no way based upon any work of their own but only upon the sovereign work of God.

Discussing the idea of election then brings in the question of the extent of the atonement.  Here the classical Calvinist and Arminian positions differ as well.  The Arminian, seeing that those who have faith are the elect and that anyone may align his will with that of the Spirit and so be saved, argues that the atonement is for all humanity, and that the call is wide and general that all men may respond to it.  The Calvinist argues that as God has determined whom he will save and has elected those individuals, the atonement is necessarily limited only to the elect, and that while there is the general call of the Gospel to all men,  Christ did not die to procure salvation for all men, but rather his death was only for those whom God would effectually call, that is, the elect.  (It is this area more than any other I often hear argued about among Christians.)

The final area that I want to discuss as far as Calvinist and Arminian disagreements goes is in the area of final salvation.  What I mean by this is the question of whether or not men can lose their salvation.  In this area modern Arminians have taken a more traditionally Calvinist position, but at the same time many are not aware that their position is historically Calvinist.  In the Baptist tradition there is the saying, "Once saved always saved" which indicates the impossibility of men losing their salvation.  However, the original Arminian position was to reject this position, which the Calvinists held to.  The Arminians argued that the Calvinists were wrong, and that as the will of man was free to determine his own response to God it was therefore possible that a man who had responded in faith to God and had entered into the New Covenant with Christ- a man who was saved- could, in fact, lose that salvation by walking away from Christ.  The Calvinists, again appealing to the sovereignty of God, had argued that whomever God saves is saved, and that as no act of man's will brought him into salvation, but men only responded as the Spirit drew them, so likewise no one who had been so drawn would ever turn away from Christ.

So, on this last point, as to whether or not men can lose their salvation, the Arminian position was that yes, men could lose their salvation.  However, the Calvinist position was that men could not lose their salvation. 

In this area we see the final outworking of the real crux that divides the two camps, that being the question of the freedom of the will of man.  The Arminian argues that the will of man is necessarily free, that God desires a relationship with man built upon this foundation of free choice.  In this view man must decide wholly upon his own whether he will respond to the call of the Spirit or not, and though God calls a man he does not bind the will of man to respond to that call.  The Arminian view may be somewhat summarized as the idea of a lover pursuing his beloved.  The Calvinist argues that the will of man is corrupt, and that God saves men based upon his will, not upon their desire to respond to him.  Consequently, in the Calvinist view, the will of man is either in bondage to sin or grace; there is no such thing as a true "freewill" that is totally unbounded and is not bent either toward God or away from God.  For the Calvinist the relationship between God and man is both a lover chasing after his beloved and also a military captain conquering a rebellious city.

In the next post I will attempt to being looking at the areas where the Calvinist and the Arminian differ.  My goal is to look at Scripture and see which of the positions makes sense of the biblical witness and what the weaknesses are within the positions.  I hope to look at each of the positions from both a philosophical and theological perspective, seeking weaknesses in logic and deficiencies in textual soundness.