Featured Arminianism and Calvinism are not that different

I know I'm rehashing a well-worn concept here, but that's kind of the M.O. of this forum, right?

In the middle of the debates on here, I usually find myself thinking that Calvinism and Arminianism are really not that far apart, in the end.

Putting the labels aside for a moment (in case you want to use a different term for yourself, etc.), the reality is that under both schools of thought, the following beliefs are true:

1) From the very beginning, God knew that some would be saved and some would be lost.
2) God is omniscient, and his foreknowledge is exhaustive.
3) God therefore knows who will be saved and who will be lost.
4) God is omnipotent.

Whether or not election is based on foreknowledge of human choice (Arminianism) or solely God's decree (Calvinism), God knew that not all would be saved.

Also, even if you believe that God possesses "middle knowledge"--full knowledge of what would happen in a hypothetical situation that will never come to pass (as with Molinism), then you still must accept that God chose to create a universe in which some people would never be saved.

If you believe that free choice is possible and is the determining factor between salvation and remaining in one's lost state, it seems untenable to believe that God is incapable of leading any given lost person to a free choice of faith in every possible world. Surely there would be at least one possible world in which God would be able, by his power, to bring such a person to voluntary faith.

If even one person who dies without Christ in this world could have come to Christ by God's intervention in another hypothetical world that God did not choose to create, then God is making a choice to actualize a world in which a person would not be saved who could have been saved, had a different world been actualized.

To avoid this conclusion, you have to go into universalism or open theism, but you have to deny one of the numbered points above.

My point is that Calvinists and Arminians (or if you prefer a different term for either group) are primarily arguing over the means God chose to use to save some, not over the decision itself only to save some.

You may object that I haven't cited Scripture in this post, but I have intentionally not done so. I'm not trying to litigate the truth claims of any specific framework. I'm merely seeking to draw attention to the similarities of the systems as they exist.

 

I do agree with you on that point, but in the end, the extent of the atonement doesn't change the number of people who are saved. (The same would apply if one believes that middle knowledge is valid--Christ would die for all of the elect, no matter the exact number, in any possible world.)

 

Exactly. Arminians believe in prevenient grace to enable a free will choice, but without that grace, the person would remain incapable of choosing Christ.

 

Thanks. It's been a while!

 

It may be framed that way frequently, but even if a person believes those things,God still would have chosen to prioritize free will over universal salvation (unless that person is also a universalist) and therefore would have ultimately chosen to create a world in which he knew universal salvation would not be realized.

The other main alternative is open theism, which would "solve the problem" in part because God would not have exhaustive foreknowledge and could not necessarily predict from the beginning who would and would not be saved. Of course, open theism isn't biblical, so Arminians and Calvinists rightly reject it.

Occasionally, someone will float the idea that God is not omnipotent, but such a person is usually so far beyond the bounds of orthodoxy as to render this discussion entirely irrelevant. You can find this idea in post-Holocaust Jewish theology especially, but once you've left Christian theology, you are no longer dealing with truth anyway.

 

This is where prevenient grace (grace that goes before) in Arminian theology comes into play. Arminians contend that God first extends grace to enable a person to respond, but the individual then has the choice to accept or to reject Christ.

 

(I don't claim to be an Arminian, for the record.)

It is indeed a point of contrast between Calvinists and Arminians and also between Arminians and Semipelagians.