How is DT Inherently Arminian?

[Jerusalem Blade]

Hi Melanie!

You said, “The focus on the end times takes the focus off of Christ and scripture”, and while there is indeed truth in that (I’ll tell an anecdote in a moment), if one maintains balance with a vital spiritual life having that as a focus is not bad.

A dear friend, much into the Left Behind scenarios, evidently thinks she may have a “second chance” to get right with God when all believers disappear, and does not walk with the Lord now. It is a very dangerous trap.

Prophecy is given us to comfort, encourage, succor, and warn, and this need not exclude a view (albeit not “detailed”) of a prophesied history to come. As an example, this is from Stuart Olyott’s commentary on Daniel, Dare To Stand Alone. The angel has been telling Daniel the visions of chapter 8:

“You have heard the truth, Daniel,” says the angel (26). “Now preserve the vision, because the future will need a record of what you have seen.”​

And it did. In those darkest of days, when the people of God were being hounded and killed in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, they needed and they had the comfort of this chapter of Daniel. Throughout that period they were consoled by knowing that this wicked man could not have stepped on to the page of history without divine permission and that everything he did, however awful, was nothing other than what God had predicted centuries earlier. They knew that in God’s time, and in fulfilment of verse 25, he would at last be removed. To know all this was an indescribable comfort to them in horrific times. (p. 110)​

This will be the case again, when the writings of Revelation will be “an indescribable comfort” in our “time of trouble” (Dan 12:1). A pastor I know says that the shock of unexpected suffering (“Why did it happen to me – I’ve been good?” “Where is God when I needed Him? Has He abandoned me?” “My faith is shattered – how could God let this happen to my loved ones?”) can be even worse than the suffering itself, for it may attack the foundations of our faith and trust in our Saviour.

There are many who, with the blasé that may come with long familiarity with prophetic Scripture along with the peace we have known in the West – especially in America – turn a deaf ear to warnings that others, as the children of Issachar, “which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron 12:32), take fully to heart and “arm their minds” to suffer those things we have been told would come upon those who live godly in Christ Jesus.

Such confusion has been sown in the field of eschatology by DT and other premil views (to name only two sources of the present confusion!) that many call themselves “pan-mil” – meaning it will all pan out in the end, whatever comes. So many flocks sleep, their pastors not wanting to be branded alarmists, as our own time of tribulation draws nigh. In balanced saints, being awake to such things, but draws them closer to their Shepherd, and quickly weans them from the intoxicants of Babylon.

 

[CuriousNdenver]

You said, “The focus on the end times takes the focus off of Christ and scripture”, and while there is indeed truth in that (I’ll tell an anecdote in a moment), if one maintains balance with a vital spiritual life having that as a focus is not bad.

I should have worded this as an UNHEALTHY focus on the end times... I was thinking of those similar to your friend who believes she will have a second chance and to those who as Scott has said, have built cottage industries around end times prophecies. I personally know some folks who will talk prophecy all day long but refuse to open the word of God, much less to allow it to penetrate into their lives. This kind of focus keeps people from scripture and from a vibrant walk with the Lord. It is highly prevalent in the Pentecostal type churches that checker my neighborhood.

There are many who, with the blasé that may come with long familiarity with prophetic Scripture along with the peace we have known in the West – especially in America – turn a deaf ear to warnings that others, as the children of Issachar, “which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron 12:32), take fully to heart and “arm their minds” to suffer those things we have been told would come upon those who live godly in Christ Jesus.

Such confusion has been sown in the field of eschatology by DT and other premil views (to name only two sources of the present confusion!) that many call themselves “pan-mil” – meaning it will all pan out in the end, whatever comes. So many flocks sleep, their pastors not wanting to be branded alarmists, as our own time of tribulation draws nigh. In balanced saints, being awake to such things, but draws them closer to their Shepherd, and quickly weans them from the intoxicants of Babylon.

Yes, our day is coming. In the West, it may be closer than we think. What a great comfort these scriptures will be along with our memories of God's faithfulness in the small trials some of us face now.

 

[Peairtach]

You said, “The focus on the end times takes the focus off of Christ and scripture”, and while there is indeed truth in that (I’ll tell an anecdote in a moment), if one maintains balance with a vital spiritual life having that as a focus is not bad.

I should have worded this as an UNHEALTHY focus on the end times...

One of the ways in which it is unhealthy is that they constantly believe that Christ's Second Advent and its prior concomitants are soon to be upon us, and events in the Middle East and elsewhere are scanned for any correspondence with Scripture. I don't know if this is only a feature of DT, or also of generic Premillennialism. It seems to have been around before 1948, but maybe it wasn't so widely assumed then.

Being on constant tenterhooks about current affairs and their possible prophetic fulfilment, being proven wrong and going back for more, all on the basis of a wrong-headed system isn't a healthy waiting for Christ's Second Advent.

Such waiting for and yearning for the end is first of all a moral waiting, anyway.


Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2

 

[Pilgrim]

For what it's worth it seems that the early Plymouth Brethren leaders (originators of the pre-trib teaching) were to a man believers in particular redemption. That includes some like B.W. Newton who rejected pre-trib. But I think this began to become less common by the second generation, which would include leaders like McIntosh (C.H.M.) To some extent arguably that mirrored what was going on in broader evangelicalism as a whole.

DT is certainly not Reformed or Calvinist in a confessional sense and never claimed to be for obvious reasons. But with regard to soteriology alone I don't think its inherently "Arminian." Consider that it didn't arise in Arminian circles and was not initially popularized in those circles either. It was spread in the USA initially by certain more or less Calvinistic evangelical Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, basically those who were active in the Bible Conference movement. (W.E. Blackstone and A. Gaebelein are the only notable exceptions I can think of, both of whom were of a Methodist background, I think.) Darby's chief disciple in the USA was the Presbyterian minister James H. Brookes, who later took Scofield under his wing. With the exception of strict confessionalist Reformed people and perhaps a smattering of Landmark Baptists who saw dispensationalism as being incompatible with their ecclesiology, the Arminians were the most resistant to it and were basically the last to hop aboard the dispensational train in the early 20th Century.

The essential incompatibility of dispensationalism with traditional Pentecostalism (such as the Assembly of God) should be obvious, In my humble opinion. (I mention this because it's arguably the only expression of (or descendent of) Wesleyan-Arminianism that isn't more or less moribund today, depending on one's locale.) That's more compatible with a certain type of postmillennialism, and with the early "Latter Rain" teaching, that was indeed their early emphasis. I think the marriage of that and dispensationalism was probably moreso the result of the popularity of Scofieldism after WWI among evangelicals in general and the perceived bankruptcy of postmil at that time. Some more recent charismatics (perhaps especially the Third Wave) have noted this incompatibility and have dropped pre-trib if not premil altogether.

It could be argued that the dispensational emphasis (and also the older Calvinistic historic/covenantal premil emphasis) on what they see as God's unconditonal promises (or "election") of Israel is "Calvinistic." That was basically MacArthur's point. Agree or disagree, I don't think it could be fairly said to be an "Arminian" position. However, those who tend toward hyperdispensationalism (including those who take certain statements of Scofield and Chafer on the salvation of the OT saints to their logical conclusion) are often hostile even to the basically Amryaldian views of Chafer and his students.

As a general rule I would also say that the classic or more traditional form of dispensationalism that emphasizes 7 (+/-) dispensations as taught in the various editions of the Scofield Reference Bible is getting harder to come by these days. The exceptions would appear to be some IFB circles where the Old Scofield is still revered along with some more traditional "Bible" churches that still place a strong emphasis on dispensationalism as a system as opposed to a more general opposition to "replacement theology." There are probably a lot of those kinds of Bible churches where Edward is in TX. your mileage may vary on that kind of thing but I think the numbers on that brand of dispensationalism are clearly in decline even if some individual congregations may be growing here and there. There are a lot more Southern Baptists than those groups put together. For the most part, graduates of SBC seminaries seem to be either premils in the George Ladd mold or amil. That's not to say that none are dispensational, at least in a general sense i.e. pre-trib. But I think it's fair to say that in the coming decades we can expect to see a SBC that is considerably less marked by dispensationalism.

 

[CuriousNdenver]

DT is certainly not Reformed or Calvinist in a confessional sense and never claimed to be for obvious reasons. But with regard to soteriology alone I don't think its inherently "Arminian." Consider that it didn't arise in Arminian circles and was not initially popularized in those circles either. It was spread in the USA initially by certain more or less Calvinistic evangelical Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, basically those who were active in the Bible Conference movement. (W.E. Blackstone and A. Gaebelein are the only notable exceptions I can think of, both of whom were of a Methodist background, I think.) Darby's chief disciple in the USA was the Presbyterian minister James H. Brookes, who later took Scofield under his wing. With the exception of strict confessionalist Reformed people and perhaps a smattering of Landmark Baptists who saw dispensationalism as being incompatible with their ecclesiology, the Arminians were the most resistant to it and were basically the last to hop aboard the dispensational train in the early 20th Century.

Can you recommend any sources for further study on the non-Arminian origins of DT?

Wasn't Darby also rejecting creeds and confessions in favor of a more personal experience?

 

[Pilgrim]

DT is certainly not Reformed or Calvinist in a confessional sense and never claimed to be for obvious reasons. But with regard to soteriology alone I don't think its inherently "Arminian." Consider that it didn't arise in Arminian circles and was not initially popularized in those circles either. It was spread in the USA initially by certain more or less Calvinistic evangelical Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists, basically those who were active in the Bible Conference movement. (W.E. Blackstone and A. Gaebelein are the only notable exceptions I can think of, both of whom were of a Methodist background, I think.) Darby's chief disciple in the USA was the Presbyterian minister James H. Brookes, who later took Scofield under his wing. With the exception of strict confessionalist Reformed people and perhaps a smattering of Landmark Baptists who saw dispensationalism as being incompatible with their ecclesiology, the Arminians were the most resistant to it and were basically the last to hop aboard the dispensational train in the early 20th Century.

Can you recommend any sources for further study on the non-Arminian origins of DT?

Wasn't Darby also rejecting creeds and confessions in favor of a more personal experience?

Melanie,

These are the two resources that immediately come to mind.

Early Brethren Leaders the Question of Calvinism by Mark R. Stevenson (This one is particularly interesting given the apparent strong anti-Calvinism among the Brethren today, many of whom are Dave Hunt fans. If I'm not mistaken, Hunt himself had a Brethren background.)

The Calvinistic Heritage of Dispensationalism

Evidently one or more of George Marsden's books, such as Fundamentalism and American Culture, delves into this as well. (I haven't read any Marsden although I really need to.) Some of the Reformed critiques of dispensationalism note that it was disseminated in more or less Calvinistic circles as well.

As for Darby, the statement "in favor of a more personal experience" connotes for me a kind of charismatic approach. I'm not sure if that's quite accurate but I may be misreading. However, the Brethren in particular were certainly a "back to the Bible" group if there ever was one. They all did to varying degrees reject traditionalism, which would include confessions such as the WCF or the Thirty Nine Articles. They thought that the Reformers were wrong on ecclesiology (church/Israel distinction, etc.) and eschatology in particular. And that would probably include, to some extent, post-trib men like Newton and Tregelles as well as the pre-trib men like Darby and Kelly.

The Americans who adopted dispensationalism as a general rule did not adopt Brethren ideas about local church organization and tended to retain their denominational identity, at least for the first generation or two.

 

[SinnerSavedByChrist]

I believe the charge is due to the fact that rather than seeing God's revelation/interactions/covenants throughout time all deriving from a common purpose towards a common goal, dispensationalism sees God as fundamentally "changing course" each time a dispensation "doesn't work." In other words, dispensationalism sees God's work in the world as being fundamentally reactionary to human choice to conform to or reject the terms of the given dispensation.

NAILED IT. Talked to a full Dispensational yesterday and read his tract "Covenantal theology / reformed / replacement" (which was a horrible ad hominem / logically fallacious little piece).

And it's more than just "God reacted". But "you have to do certain things within each dispensation to be saved. If you don't do them, you won't." -----> which is Galatians 1:8-9 territory!!!!!

 

[Ron Henzel]

I became a Christian among the Open Plymouth Brethren and was schooled in Dispensationalism at Emmaus Bible College (then in Oak Park, IL; now in Dubuque, IA). I think we need to keep in mind an observation made by an early historian of the Plymouth Brethren, William Blair Neatby, who wrote, "In systematic divinity they were weak, and their history shows the perilous character of the weakness," (A History of the Plymouth Brethren, [London, UK: Hodder and Stoughton, 1901], 331.) And yet, on the other hand, it was not as though the early Brethren were either ignorant of Reformed theology or unconcerned with it. The great division between Open and Exclusive Brethren was precipitated over a dispute concerning whether Christ's earthly sufferings connected Him in some way to the federal headship of Adam (cf. F. Roy Coad, A History of the Brethren Movement, [Vancouver, BC, Candada: Regent College Publishing, reprinted 2001], 147-150). And in 1861, John Nelson Darby wrote his "Letter on Free-will," in which he declared, "free-will is a false and absurd theory" (Letter on Free-will). As with all of Darby's writings, both the grammar and the logic are somewhat muddled, but where he ends up is clear. As I believe I adequately demonstrate in my book, Darby, Dualism, and the Decline of Dispensationalism, (Tucson, AZ, USA: Fenestra Books, 2003), Dispensationalism's paternity is beyond question: Darby is its father. And so if you are looking for inherent Arminianism in the system, it would be necessary to begin at the fountainhead; but it is precisely there where you will be disappointed.

It is also worth pointing out that Darby remained a paedobaptist all his life, and some of his followers still are (cf. Coad, ibid., 123). Since he obviously rejected Covenant theology, it leaves me wondering why he did not shed that vestige of his former Anglicanism, and yet at the same time he also technically speaking did not shed the concept of apostolic succession, since it was on the foundation of that very concept that he constructed his "doctrine of the church in ruin," which, although cast off by subsequent Dispensationalists, was an inherent part of Darby's version of the system. Unlike later Dispensationalism, in Darby's original rendition the "dispensational test" was something that mankind always failed at the beginning of each dispensation, rather than at the end. So, just as Adam and Eve fell soon after creation, and Noah got drunk and society descended into idolatry soon after disembarking from the Ark, so also the church fell into ruin shortly after the death of the last apostle, and so apostolic succession came to a screeching halt, and the actual church of the New Testament can no longer be sustained because it fell into immediate ruin. For Darby, ecclesiology per se is thus reduced to a kind of biblical archaeology with no corresponding practical theology (or at least no practical use for church offices), and all we can do as believers now, according to Darby, is "meet in the name of Christ alone," without any church offices or denominational structures. My in-laws, who were raised in Chicago area Open Brethren assemblies that were influenced by Darbyism, were trained to call church services "meetings," and to reserve the word "churches" for any group of non-Brethren Christians.

It is further worth noting that Darby himself personally brought Dispensationalism to the North America. As a lifelong bachelor of independent means he "visited the United States and Canada seven times between 1862 and 1877, actually residing in and traveling through the two countries for nearly seven out of those sixteen years," (from page 41 of my book, where I cite Earnest R. Sandeen's Roots of Fundamentalism, 74). He was one of the first passengers on the intercontinental railroad and he had personal (and somewhat tempestuous) conversations with D.L. Moody. But of most interest here is the fact that among his first converts to Dispensationalism was Presbyterian James Hall Brookes, who helped found the late-19th century Niagara Bible Conferences that helped spread Dispensationalism to a wider audience, and who mentored another Presbyterian, Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, creator of the Scofield Reference Bible, which continued that spread into the 20th century. Yet another Presbyterian, Lewis Sperry Chafer, founded Dallas Theological Seminary, and published the first Dispensational systematic theology. Darby was supremely disappointed that he did not convert Americans such as Brookes to accept his version of Plymouth Brethrenism, complete with its doctrine of the church in ruin (which was by no means identical with the Brethrenism of George Müller and the Open Brethren), and that they thus did not leave their churches to form little Brethren assemblies. But he did convert enough of them to his Dispensational scheme to set something in motion that few could have foreseen even by the time of his death in 1882.

Obviously these Presbyterians who were instrumental in spreading Dispensationalism were non-Reformed when it came to Covenant Theology (despite their persistence in paedobaptism), and they were also on the soft side when it came to Calvinism, but it would be wrong to call them Arminians. Chafer would have classified himself among "The Moderate Calvinists Who Are Unlimited Redemptionists" (Systematic Theology, [Dallas, TX, USA: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948; 1976], 3:184). Several of my Emmaus profs were Dallas grads, and even the ones who weren't were virtual walking encyclopedias of Dispensationalism. But these were the same men who introduced me to the works of John Murray and R.C. Sproul. To this day I am exceedingly grateful to my instructor in Old Testament and Romans at Emmaus, the late Jim Catron, for strongly advising me to secure a copy of Murray's The Imputation of Adam's Sin and digest it thoroughly. I still have my old beat-up, marked-up copy of it. Now, I can't be equally sanguine about the attitude toward Calvinism within broader landscape of Dispensationalist academia. After all, the same Dallas Seminary that produced several of my Emmaus profs also produced Zane Hodges and had Norman Geisler on faculty. Yes, Arminians can feel quite at home within Dispensationalism. And yet I don't think we can say that Dispensationalism is inherently Arminian.