Can We Eliminate the Divide Between Calvinism and Arminianism?

I'm trending that way too and will go with that flow.

I guess that you have to be pretty smart to receive a doctorate in Arminianism.

Hi Tourist,

It's good you don't. I was pretty horrified when I found about about Calvinism many years ago.
Basically it's like this:
Mainline Christianity believes that God reveals Himself to persons and then each one makes up their mind as to whether or not they're going to believe. Some are zapped,,some study and come to salvation...but somehow our free will choice is involved, and ANYONE can be saved....John 3:16

In the reformed theology (calvinism) it's God that does the choosing.
He decides who will be saved and who will be damned.
And His decision is based on NOTHING AT ALL,,,it's totally arbitrary.

There's a lot more...but that's it in a nutshell.

The five points of Arminianism (from Jacobus Arminius 1559-1609) are in contrast to the five points of Calvinism. The Arminian five points are

• Human Free Will--This states that though man is fallen, he is not incapacitated by the sinful nature and can freely choose God. His will is not restricted and enslaved by his sinful nature.
• Conditional Election--God chose people for salvation based on His foreknowledge where God looks into the future to see who would respond to the gospel message.
• Universal Atonement--The position that Jesus bore the sin of everyone who ever lived.
• Resistable Grace--The teaching that the grace of God can be resisted and finally beaten so as to reject salvation in Christ.
• Fall from Grace--The Teaching that a person can fall from grace and lose his salvation.

source: https://carm.org/dictionary-five-points-arminianism (sometimes carm is good!)

God becomes morally ambigous

Where is resistable grace explained in scripture?

This is where Arminianism is not biblical. The Bible is very clear the believer is eternally secure.

That's why Christians have a third option -- Biblicism.

Very good point !

God is love.
God is justice.
God is moral.

His very being is moral....how could He then be
unloving
unjust and
immoral and save persons based on NOTHING??

I once heard Piper or MacArthur give a talk on how they should go out and preach (which also makes no sense) because they love all people and everyone deserves to be saved.

???

If God chooses...what good would it do?
Also, if THEY love people so much,,,how come God doesn't?

IOW,,, THEY love persons MORE than the GOD that CREATED THEM!

Could you imagine believing that we, humans, could love more than God?
It's unbelievable.

Not *explained* but clearly presented:

ACTS 7
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
53 Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

HEBREWS 3
7 Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9 When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.
10 Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.
11 So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)
12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.

Resistible grace is explained everywhere there is a choice to be made.

In reformed theology, it's God that predetermines what you will choose...so, in effect, you have no choice. That is irresistible grace. God forces a person to accept His grace.
Which is interesting because it means that when we sin...it would be GOD that is forcing us to sin.

For instance....
John 3:16 that WHOEVER believes....
this means I have a choice....I can RESIST God's grace to be saved and continue in an unsaved condition.

In John 14:23 Jesus says ANYONE WHO LOVES ME....This means I could choose NOT to love Him,,,I could RESIST His grace.

How about John 12:32 Jesus said If he be lifted up, He will draw ALL MEN to Himself.
That also is giving us a choice,,,God draws....we choose to follow Him or not (otherwise we'd all be saved...it's a free will choice).


Wherever the N.T. or O.T. speaks of a choice....it is giving us the right to RESIST
God's grace.

He does not force it upon us....

OK N...BUT
I don't agree.
The N.T. teaches salvation can be lost....
Here's why:


1. The concept of OSAS did not exist before the reformation in 1,500 AD.
2. That would mean that all theologians before this were wrong....
3. There are so many verse for it that it really can't be denied if we want to be intellectually honest.

I believe in eternal security....
as long as we are IN CHRIST...
we are secure.

If you don't believe this, it means we could stop believing and return to a life of sin and still be saved....

Unless I don't understand your third way....

So then what we are really saying is "resistible prevenient grace" and the total inability of man to respond to the Gospel once heard without the work of grace in the man's heart?

I read more that God reveals himself and He removes the veil over peoples eyes (spiritual blindness) as they respond to His promptings and hearing His word, not that He gives Grace to the non-believer and they can resist His Grace.

20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

The third way is to properly understand the COMPREHENSIVE NATURE OF GOD'S SALVATION, where God predestines those who will be justified by grace through faith to be perfected -- conformed to the image of His Son. Perfected means glorified, as well as morally and spiritually perfected.

Now please note these passages carefully and take time to digest them.

ROMANS 8: THEM HE ALSO GLORIFIED
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

1 JOHN 3: WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM
1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Now how could God justify the children of God and PREDESTINE them for glorification if they could lose their salvation? Salvation is the perfect work of God, not affected by what we are, or what we do, or do not do. But any Christian who sins willfully may be subject to severe consequences, including premature death (the sin unto death).

This is how N....
God NEVER takes away our free will.
We could walk away from God tomorrow if we wanted to.
It could be through sheer will, or persecution, as Jesus said,,,or temptation.
Sorry, no verses,,,it's 1 am here and I'm signing off right after this.

As you stated in your verses posted....God predestined HOW we will be saved....
As long as we remain IN CHRIST,,,we give God the possibility to work with us with the help of the Holy Spirit....if we are not IN CHRST, we will no longer have God's covering.

If you believe that faith saves us....
Then no faith.....brings us to be lost.

If we believe, we are saved...
If we do not believe, we are not saved.


Tomorrow...

You need to have more clarity in this matter:

1. God's grace is offered to ALL MANKIND in and through Christ and His finished work of salvation.

2. The Gospel is meant for *every creature* which means that all can be saved if all will obey the Gospel (repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ)

3. When the Gospel is preached (or read) it becomes the power of God unto salvation through the convicting and convincing of the Holy Spirit. Which means that *total inability* or *total depravity* are not biblical, and sinners can and do respond to the preaching of the Gospel. You can either call this God giving grace through conviction and convincing, or God OFFERING grace through the Gospel.

4. All sinners will be convicted by the Holy Spirit, but they can either (a) submit to God and Christ or (b) reject the Gospel, reject Christ, and reject the offer of eternal life. Which means that they can either obey the Gospel or disobey the Gospel. And as Paul says (Rom 10:16) But they have not all obeyed the Gospel. And this is what resisting grace means. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS IRRESISTIBLE GRACE (Mark 16:15,16)

5. The term "prevenient grace" is not found in the Bible. But here is what it means from Theopedia:
Prevenient grace refers to the grace of God in a person's life that precedes conversion (or salvation). The word "prevenient," considered an archaic term today, was common in the King James English and simply means to "go before" or "precede." Likewise, it is sometimes called "preventing" grace (from prevenient) with the same meaning...
In Arminianism and Wesleyanism, it is a grace that offsets the noetic effects of the Fall, restores man's free will, and thus enables every person to choose to come to Christ or not. There are two forms of this view:

• Universal prevenient grace — This grace is extended to every person. (BIBLICAL)
• Individualistic prevenient grace — This grace is only extended to those who come under the intelligent hearing of the gospel, and not to every person.

However, here is the biblical meaning of God's grace:
TITUS 2: GRACE = SALVATION + SANCTIFICATION + GOOD WORKS
11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
12 Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Yes I was trying to be brief, but this is the part where I am diving a little deeper.

Agree no such thing as irresistible grace.

Would you agree then that saving faith is not a gift, that we as people are able to be convicted and persuaded based on all that you stated above?

I don't think Paul's veil thought can be used for a doctrine for "personkind" as he was speaking in an analogous way about the folks under the law of Moses.

So now we somehow think the fact we have even the possibility to have faith in something that can save us is not a gift.

Well thats a good way to give weapons to the very people your trying to appose.

Interesting, yes I agree.

Imma gonna phone Guinness Book O' Records.