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Arminian Baptist Website

Discussion in '2000-02 Archive' started by Michael Wrenn, Mar 4, 2002.

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  1. Michael Wrenn

    Michael Wrenn New Member

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    Here is a great website which which contains resources from the Arminian Baptist perspective and highlights information about those first and original English Baptists, the General Baptists. Here are found confessions, biographies, and more--a great wealth of information.

    http://www.genbap.com
     
    #1 Michael Wrenn, Mar 4, 2002
  2. Michael Wrenn

    Michael Wrenn New Member

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    I posted this website because we have been inundated with stuff from the Calvinist side, and I wanted people to be able to read something from the other side--the correct side.

    Are you denying that to be effective in the life of an individual, that individual must accept the atonement? Christ died for all people, as the General Baptists teach, but for the effects of the atonement to be applied to the individual, the person has to accept by faith what Jesus did.
     
    #2 Michael Wrenn, Mar 4, 2002
  3. JAMES2

    JAMES2 New Member

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    \

    [ March 05, 2002, 01:31 AM: Message edited by: JAMES2 ]
     
    #3 JAMES2, Mar 4, 2002
  4. Michael Wrenn

    Michael Wrenn New Member

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    James,

    No, you have come to an incorrect conclusion--that is, I am not making my choice the grounds of my salvation. The atonement is an objective fact; it is the ground of my salvation. The difference, however, between non-Calvinists--such as I--and Calvinists is that we non-Calvinists don't believe we are forced or compelled by God to accept the atonement of Christ, and neither do we believe God precludes or keeps us from accepting it because of some arbitrary, determinist, eternal decree.

    We all have the freedom of will to accept or reject Jesus and what He did for us; God did not take way Adam and Eve's ability to choose after they fell, and he did not take away ours, either. Our God-given free will as well as our God-given nature was weakened and damaged but not destroyed. I accepted Jesus because I did not turn away from the prevenient grace already active in me from conception and instilled in me through the influence of Godly parents and the church. I accepted God's free offer freely, although I still could have just as freely turned my back on His offer and rejected Him.

    God provided the means of salvation--He acted first, and it's an objective fact. But it's up to us to accept or reject the offer--God doesn't force anyone to come into His kingdom, nor does He forcefully keep them out. For the benefits of the atonement to be applied to a person, that person must freely accept God's gracious offer in Christ.

    What I find so objectionable about Calvinism is that it posits that God rules by coercion when actually coercion is a tool of the devil.
     
    #4 Michael Wrenn, Mar 4, 2002
  5. JAMES2

    JAMES2 New Member

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    Michael:
    I will respect your thoughts that you posted for people that did not believe in the Calvinist position (gospel position). I will erase my earlier post, but now I have to answer your current statements.
    You most certainly are making your CHOICE of "accepting" Jesus your grounds for your salvation.
    God does not FORCE salvation on anyone. After His miracle of regenerating the depraved sinner, that person WANTS to (WILL) more than anything else to come to Christ. He not only wants to but can think of nothing else but of growing in knowledge and faith. No FORCING involved.
    Your statement that it is UP TO US to ACCEPT OR REJECT is exactly what is wrong with the church today, and why it is in such a deplorable condition. It all comes back to man-centered religion. How on earth, with a straight face, can you even utter the concept that a fallen, depraved sinner can make the atonement of no effect based on man's free choice?

    Don't you see what you are doing? You are switching places with God. You are saying that man's freedom is sovereign. Even more sovereign that God's freedom. Poor God, poor defeated savior, poor disappointed Holy Spirit. Man has to have free-will and that is the most important thing in the universe -- even more powerful and important that the Thrice Holy Sovereign God. He CAN'T carry out HIS plan, because the power of a depraved sinner's FREE WILL is more powerful than the All-Powerful God. What a concept.

    You believe in your God and I will believe in the God of the bible. The bible defines the attributes of God, not man. I didn't read in any of the scriptures that man's free will has the ability to limit God's effectiveness!!!!!

    I am ending all these discussions( not just on these subject, but on all subjects) because they are a complete and total waste of time.
    James2

    [ March 05, 2002, 01:37 AM: Message edited by: JAMES2 ]
     
    #5 JAMES2, Mar 5, 2002
  6. Kiffin

    Kiffin New Member

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    Interesting site. Though I am from the Calvinist wing I do have a appreciation for the early General Baptists. It would be nice if he could get the 1678 Orthodox Baptist creed on his site which is by far the best GB confession plus I would like to find some of Smyth and Helwys sermons against infant baptism Online.
     
    #6 Kiffin, Mar 5, 2002
  7. Michael Wrenn

    Michael Wrenn New Member

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    James,

    You totally mischaracterize my views and those of arminianism, as you always do. No one can make the atonement of no effect--freeedom of the will certainly doesn't do that.

    I am notsaying man's freedom is sovereign; I am saying that the sovereign God has given man free will, and that's one of the greatest gifts a loving God could give his creatures. It stands as a bulwark against the puppetmaster god that Calvinism created!

    I'll believe in the God of the Bible, and you can believe in the Calvinist god--who was unknown prior to Calvin.

    I must say you have a twisted view of man's free will and God's sovereignty. Man's God-given free will doesn't limit God's effectiveness or thwart God's plans; it is God's created and appointed means of interaction with man; it is an integral part of the character and being of God. Take it away and you're left with the dark, deterministic, fatalistic, puppetmaster that calvinism makes of God, and the puppet that calvinism makes of man.
     
    #7 Michael Wrenn, Mar 5, 2002
  8. JAMES2

    JAMES2 New Member

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    Michael:
    Talk about not understanding the gospel doctrine of God's Sovereignity!!! Everything you said was in error. Calvin didn't somehow "invent" God's Sovereignity. Every single point is what the Bible and the gospel repeatedly state. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and many, many more just rescued it from the deep dark recesses of Rome. They brought it to light, and your statements are a perfect example of how it is a continuing fight to keep the Reformation alive. Man just can't give up his save himself salvation.

    That is exactly what you are doing, by advocating that it is up to man to make a "choice" about accepting Jesus.

    For the last time: WHY DID YOU ACCEPT JESUS AND ALL THE OTHERS THAT HAD THE SAME OPPORTUNITY (according to you) DID NOT ACCEPT JESUS?
    Calvin's God?? I'm sorry to inform you, but that is the God described in the bible. Not some ineffective, disappointed, God that can have his plans rendered ineffective by the so-called "free-will of man. I am really begin to believe that you ARE UNABLE to see the falsehood that you believe. You have created god in your own image. A god that is inferior to your choice. A god inferior to your "free-will." You say God WANTS to save everybody, but he can't unless a fallen, depraved sinner DECIDES to accept him. What on earth kind of god do you worship? A god that can be thwarted by man. A god that is held in subjection to what a depraved sinner "decides."

    We are getting nowhere in this and the discussion has become a waste of time. I feel really sorry for what you are being taught. Like it or not, your god is inferior to man, at the beck and call of man, and a god made in your own image, a god that is inferior to the "free-will" of a joe sinner.

    I will worship the Thrice Holy God of the bible, the one Calvin and Luther and many, many more died defending. The Sovereign God, the All-Powerful and All-Knowing God of the bible. Thank you God for your free gift, for YOU deciding to regenerating YOUR people, for YOU knowing your SHEEP and seeing to it that they will be brought to glory. Thank you God.

    You call my view fatalistic!! In a sense I suppose you may be right. But not in the sense of the fatalism of the Stoics and the other pagan philosophers. They believed that your life is determined by the random bumping of atoms together. Blind chance of an impersonal forces of the "gods."

    I believe the bible says that God knows your days, knows the number of hairs on your head, KNOWS His word does not go out in vain, and than his plans WILL come together as he decreed. (No free-will in that). If there is even one random atom in the universe being "free" that is not under the control of God, then God is not sovereign. Yes, EVERYTHING in existence, EVERYTHING has been determined by an intelligent, loving God, He controls EVERYTHING. He KNOWS because HE HAS DECREED every single individual that is written in the Book of Life. In that sense I believe in fatalism. The fatalism that is under the control of a Sovereign God. If you believe otherwise, your god is not the God of the Bible. Period!!!
    James2

    [ March 05, 2002, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: JAMES2 ]
     
    #8 JAMES2, Mar 5, 2002
  9. JAMES2

    JAMES2 New Member

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    #9 JAMES2, Mar 5, 2002
  10. Ray Berrian

    Ray Berrian New Member

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    Michael Wrenn,

    I agree with your view.

    Calvinists think that sovereignty is complete control like Hitler had in Germany. {a very bad comparison with reference toward God; but it gets the point across} Five point Calvinists believe, wrongly, that God has total control of everything and everybody. The Biblical view is a limited sovereignty. He is totally sovereign in world affairs but when it comes to human salvation, he has willingly limited His sovereignty allowing for personal reception or rejection of Christ. His sovereignty is more like what the King of England administers. As far as I have heard the citizens of England still have a goodly amount of freedom. This is the kind of sovereignty that God ministers toward His humankind.

    Have you noticed Calvinists never refer to John 1:12 about ' . . . but to as many as receive Christ, to those He gives the power to become the children of God.' They want the Lord God to regenerate, elect and then it is alright to believe in Jesus. They believe in a Divine Manipulator.

    What ever happened to the reality of ' . . . believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved? Looks to me like the Lord wants willing acceptance and worship of Himself.

    I'm not a Baptist but I believe in unlimited atonement. I'm sure you believe in I John 2:2. ' . . . He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our only, but also for THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD.'

    Dr. F.F. Bruce and Drs. Pink needed to oil the exegetical skills and believe that the Lord God really does love sinners.

    Dr. Berrian
     
    #10 Ray Berrian, Mar 11, 2002
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