Calvinism vs. Arminianism
For centuries, Christian theologians have debated the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human freedom. The early Greek Church Fathers tended to have a robust view of human freedom and responsibility, even as they affirmed the need for God’s grace in order to be saved from our sin. The great fifth century theologian St. Augustine, however, strongly affirmed that fallen human beings have no ability to choose God and that it is purely God’s decision who receives saving grace and who does not.
St. Augustine’s theology had an enormous impact on the Western Church, though many medieval theologians held less extreme views than his. The sixteenth century Protestant Reformer John Calvin sought to revive the Augustinian theology of salvation, affirming that who is saved and who is damned is purely a result of God’s decision, not of human free will. A later Protestant theologian, Jacobus Arminius, who sought to modify Calvinist theology, argued that human beings have the ability to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation. Those holding to this view of human freedom therefore have become known as Arminians. Arminianism became especially popularized by the great eighteenth century preacher John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism continues among Protestants down to the present day.
The acronym TULIP summarizes Calvinist theology: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints. Many Arminians do actually believe in total depravity. According to Wesleyan Arminianism, fallen human beings have no ability to put faith in Christ, and it is only by the work of God’s prevenient grace on a person’s heart that they are granted the ability to freely choose to accept Christ as their savior. Some Arminians also believe in the perseverance of the saints. It is perfectly coherent to say that we have the ability to freely choose to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation in Christ, but that, once we are saved, it becomes impossible for us to turn away and lose our salvation.
The crux of the issue dividing Calvinists and Arminians, then, centers around unconditional election, limited atonement, and irresistible grace. According to Calvinism, Christ died only for certain individuals whom God predestined to be saved, and there is no free human choice at all that distinguishes those who are saved and those who are damned. According to Arminianism, Christ died for all, and God predestined to be saved those who freely choose to put faith in Christ.
The debate between Calvinism and Arminianism is such a difficult issue because the tension between God’s sovereignty and human freedom and responsibility runs throughout the whole of Scripture. Many passages of Scripture can be used to support the idea of God’s sovereignty. But at the same time, many passages of Scripture can be used to support the idea of human freedom and responsibility.
Anyone who claims that Scripture very obviously supports one side or the other of the Calvinism/Arminianism debate is simply not taking seriously everything that Scripture says. Some passages of Scripture seem to support Calvinism. For example, Acts 13:48 says that “as many as were appointed for eternal life believed,” suggesting that who believes and who does not is a result of God’s predestination. Other passages of Scripture, though, seem to support Arminianism. For example, the “warning passages” of the book of Hebrews (2:1-4; 3:7-4:13; 5:11-6:12; 10:19-39; 12:14-29) really seem to suggest that genuine Christians can turn away and lose their salvation.
In this post, I am not going to attempt to wade into the endless exegetical debates surrounding these passages and other key passages relating to the issue of predestination. These exegetical debates are important, but I think what they show is that Scripture as a whole is not entirely clear on the issue of Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Exegesis alone will not resolve this issue; careful theological reflection on the coherence of Calvinism and Arminianism is needed as well. So, here I will give my theological reasons for being an Arminian rather than a Calvinist.
The Problem with Calvinism
According to Calvinism, God creates many people, gives them absolutely no opportunity to be saved, and then casts them into hell to experience eternal damnation. What does this say about God’s character? It says that God delights in creating people simply in order to see them be tormented for all eternity. Surely this is a monstrous picture of God’s character that is radically incompatible with who God has revealed Himself to be in Jesus Christ, the God who is Love (I John 4:8).
Calvinists argue that it would have been perfectly just for God to leave all people to experience eternal damnation, and so we should be glad that God graciously saves some people, rather than complaining that He leaves some to experience eternal damnation. After all, who are we to impose our human standards of fairness on God?
It is certainly true that we cannot impose our human standards of fairness on God. But this is not what the Arminian critique of Calvinism is trying to do. Rather, the Arminian critique of Calvinism assesses whether the Calvinist view of predestination is consistent with God’s character as He has revealed Himself to us. We know that God is love, that God is perfectly Good, and that God desires what is best for His entire creation. To say that God could have justly left all of humanity to experience eternal damnation is a deeply problematic claim, since it separates God’s justice from God’s love. The doctrine of Divine simplicity tells us that God’s justice and God’s love are not actually separate attributes of God, but are merely, from our perspective, different aspects of God’s one, simple character. God loves humanity and seeks its salvation. That is who God is, and God cannot be otherwise than He is. God always acts in a way that is consistent with His character. So, God could not have acted in a “just” but unloving way and left all of humanity to experience damnation. If He did, He would not be God.
Some Calvinists will try to argue that the damned are somehow responsible for their damnation, even though they were conceived in original sin and given no opportunity to be saved. Some Calvinists claim that all human beings were mysteriously present with Adam when he chose to rebel against God, and so all are guilty of Adam’s sin. This is such a “mysterious” idea that it is not at all clear what it means. The only way this idea could be intelligible is if someone were to claim our preexistent souls were actually there when Adam sinned and chose to sin with him. But such an idea of preexistent human souls is radically incompatible with biblical theological anthropology. Other Calvinists claim that all human beings are guilty of Adamn’s sin because we all would have done the same thing if we were in Adam’s place. If this were the case, though, it would mean that Adam (or any other human being in his situation) had no choice but to sin, given the situation God put him in. This would make God the author of sin, contradicting the Goodness of God and the goodness of His creation.
Some Calvinists will argue that it gives just as much glory to God for someone to be damned as for someone to be saved, and that there need to be some saved and some damned people in order to most fully reveal both God’s love and God’s Holiness. For argument’s sake, I will grant that it gives just as much glory to God for someone to be damned as for someone to be saved. But if this is true, then it will give just as much glory to God for everyone to be saved as for some to be saved and some to be damned. Salvation reveals God’s Holiness just as much as damnation, since a saved person must be sanctified (made holy) by God’s grace in order to be in God’s Holy presence and have union with Him. So there is no good reason to think that a mixture of saved and damned people is necessary in order to fully reveal God’s love and Holiness. God can be fully glorified, and His love and Holiness can be fully revealed, even if He truly “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4).
Many Calvinists will try to deflect from the monstrous implications of Calvinism by saying that one should focus instead on the positive idea of Calvinism: that we are saved purely by God’s gracious decision, without any merit or decision of our own. This is certainly a very beautiful and wonderful idea. But if we want to assess the reasonableness of a belief, we must analyze it from every angle. No matter how wonderful an idea may seem, if further analysis shows that it has horrible and unreasonable implications, it should be rejected.
Some Calvinists will acknowledge that there are aspects of Calvinism that are hard to accept. But they argue that it is still preferable to Arminianism, since the Arminian belief in free will denies God’s sovereignty and effectively denies that salvation truly is by grace alone by faith alone.
These charges against Arminianism, however, are spurious. Arminians do not deny God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign over His creation, a creation that includes free human agents. For Calvinists, God can only be sovereign over a world of puppets, which is a far too limited view of God. God’s sovereignty does not mean that God controls all human actions as if they are robots; it means that God is still ultimately in control, even as some of His creatures choose to act against Him.
Arminians do not deny that salvation is by grace alone by faith alone. Arminians believe that only faith in Christ, and not our own merit, saves us. They believe that it is only by God’s grace that we are able to put faith in Christ and be saved. They do believe that we have the freedom to put faith in Christ as our savior or not, but this is certainly not a belief in “works righteousness.” Faith is not a “work,” as the apostle Paul repeatedly makes clear by contrasting faith and works. So, the Calvinist theological critiques of Arminianism fail.
Both Calvinism and Arminianism fall within the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. And there is a biblical basis for Calvinism, just as there is for Arminianism. However, there are monstrous and unreasonable aspects of Calvinist theology, and Calvinist attempts to defend these aspects are very weak. Arminianism provides a more reasonable and coherent way of understanding predestination and election. This is why I am an Arminian rather than a Calvinist.