Biblicism

[360watt]

Alot of the time, people separate all christendom into either Armenian or Calvinist.

I believe the Bible doesn't teach either.

Salvation as a free gift, not by works, by placing your faith in Jesus, that cannot be lost.

I don't think that is Calvinism, because you aren't regenerated before you believe and you can resist God's drawing you.

I don't think that's Armenianism, because it is salvation that cannot be lost. Armenianism usually has loss of salvation possible.

So I would stick with being a Biblicist.

 

[John of Japan]

Alot of the time, people separate all christendom into either Armenian or Calvinist.

I believe the Bible doesn't teach either.

Salvation as a free gift, not by works, by placing your faith in Jesus, that cannot be lost.

I don't think that is Calvinism, because you aren't regenerated before you believe and you can resist God's drawing you.

I don't think that's Armenianism, because it is salvation that cannot be lost. Armenianism usually has loss of salvation possible.

So I would stick with being a Biblicist.

"Arminianism." Not connected with the nation of Armenia. Just sayin'. Trying to be helpful.

Doctrinally I'm with you.

 

[Armchair Apologist]

Where so-called "Biblicists" get in to trouble is when they feel as if they can quote a few Bible verses and end a debate that has raged on for the last 2000 years or so. Both Calvinism and Arminianism are historical positions along with the various shades of Augustinianism of which they emerged. The scriptures speak both of election and free will; of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. We need to set our preconceived biases aside and understand "Thus saith the Lord!"

The one thing we learn from the Calvinists is that mankind is spiritually dead in his unregenerate state and it is only God who can raise the dead. No one decides to "become alive" on their own. The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish but to those who are saved, it is the "POWER OF GOD!"

Arminians on the other hand remind us of man's responsibility, that God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save those who beleive, and that God has commanded all men everywhere to repentance. We are to take the gospel to "Whosoever" without making any pretence as to whether they are elect or not.

 

[360watt]

"Arminianism." Not connected with the nation of Armenia. Just sayin'. Trying to be helpful.

Doctrinally I'm with you.

Yeah, thanks I was struggling to remember the spelling.

I find it annoying that someone would still put me in the calvinist camp and say I'm a 2 point calvinist or something like that. Or that I'm an Arminian who believes in OSAS.

All doctrine doesn't originate in the teachings of the reformers. You go to the Bible itself

 

[John of Japan]

Yeah, thanks I was struggling to remember the spelling.

I find it annoying that someone would still put me in the calvinist camp and say I'm a 2 point calvinist or something like that. Or that I'm an Arminian who believes in OSAS.

All doctrine doesn't originate in the teachings of the reformers. You go to the Bible itself

Amen to all of that.

 

[JonC]

Alot of the time, people separate all christendom into either Armenian or Calvinist.

I believe the Bible doesn't teach either.

Salvation as a free gift, not by works, by placing your faith in Jesus, that cannot be lost.

I don't think that is Calvinism, because you aren't regenerated before you believe and you can resist God's drawing you.

I don't think that's Armenianism, because it is salvation that cannot be lost. Armenianism usually has loss of salvation possible.

So I would stick with being a Biblicist.

I agree with you but need to point out that Arminianism is of a Calvinistic trajectory. Jacobus Arminius died an orthodox Calvinist (Arminianism had been evaluated and considered extreme but within Calvinism). It was after his death that it was excluded.

My point is Arminianism and Calvinism share a uniqueness when compared to other theological systems. They depart based on where the logic of Calvinism takes them.

I agree that neither are biblical.

 

[DaveXR650]

Alot of the time, people separate all christendom into either Armenian or Calvinist.

I believe the Bible doesn't teach either.

Salvation as a free gift, not by works, by placing your faith in Jesus, that cannot be lost.

I don't think that is Calvinism, because you aren't regenerated before you believe and you can resist God's drawing you.

I don't think that's Armenianism, because it is salvation that cannot be lost. Armenianism usually has loss of salvation possible.

So I would stick with being a Biblicist.

You sound like just a basic Baptist. You hear the gospel and decide whether or not to believe it. If you do then you will be born again and given the Holy Spirit. If you want to label yourself in those terms you should decide whether you believe that one can hear the gospel and decide to believe it with your own innate understanding or do you need a work of the Holy Spirit involved either in a creative or regenerative way or at least in an enlightening or convincing or convicting way. Then you can decide how offended you should be when someone calls you a Calvinist, Arminian, or a semi-Pelagian.

But you don't have to define yourself necessarily and there is nothing wrong with being a basic Baptist.

 

[360watt]

I agree with you but need to point out that Arminianism is of a Calvinistic trajectory. Jacobus Arminius died an orthodox Calvinist (Arminianism had been evaluated and considered extreme but within Calvinism). It was after his death that it was excluded.

My point is Arminianism and Calvinism share a uniqueness when compared to other theological systems. They depart based on where the logic of Calvinism takes them.

I agree that neither are biblical.

Yes, I've learned over the past year that Arminianism shares predestination doctrine with Calvinism

 

[Deacon]

In a book titled, "The Bible Made Impossible," the author Christian Smith declares, "The 'biblicism' that pervades much of American evangelicalism is untenable and needs to be abandoned in favor of a better approach to Christian truth and authority."

He does not identify a particular brand of Christianity (i.e. Calvinism), however reading between the lines, he infers it is inherently present within within such a system.

He defines the problem and attacks some key beliefs or doctrines.

Biblicism believes:

1. Divine Writing: The Bible, down to the details of its words consists of and is identical with God's very own words written inerrantly in human language.

2. Total Representation: The Bible represents the totality of God’s communication to and will for humanity, both in containing all that God has to say to humans and in being the exclusive mode of God’s true communication.

3. Complete Coverage: The divine will about all of the issues relevant to Christian belief and life are contained in the Bible.

4. Democratic Perspicuity: Any reasonably intelligent person can read the Bible in his or her own language and correctly understand the plain meaning of the text.

5. Commonsense Hermeneutics: The best way to understand biblical texts is by reading them in their explicit, plain, most obvious, literal sense, as the author intended them at face value, which may or may not involve taking into account their literary, cultural, and historical contexts.

6. Solo Scriptura: The significance of any given biblical text can be understood without reliance on creeds, confessions, historical church traditions, or other forms of larger theological hermeneutical frameworks, such that theological formulations can be built up directly out of the Bible from scratch.

7. Internal Harmony: All related passages of the Bible on any given subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into single, unified, internally consistent bodies of instruction about right and wrong beliefs and behaviors.

8. Universal Applicability: What the biblical authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching.

9. Inductive Method: All matters of Christian belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible and piecing together through careful study the clear “biblical” truths that it teaches.

10. Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and moral with every affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmaitons comprise something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief.

Rob

 

[JonC]

Yes, I've learned over the past year that Arminianism shares predestination doctrine with Calvinism

Calvinism makes the mistake of playing everything under the category of predestination based on a general idea of sovereignty (basically, God is only sovereign over what He has predestined, therefore...).

To be fair, it was Beza and not Calvin who placed salvation under that category. So rather than believing that the gospel being obscured to those who are perishing being due to them being blinded by the god of this world (Satan) they contend God blinded them as they are reprobate (typically referencing God heartening Pharoah's heart).

They also view Christ as rescuing us from God's wrath rather than from evil (from this evil age, from the god of this world) and this being how we escape the wrath to come.

But Arminianism operates within this same framework (it is a form of Calvinism).