ReformedWretch
Puritan Board Doctor
Ran into a guy online tonight that called himself that! He was pretty much just straight arminian. Kept talking about prevenient grace and how I didn't understand it.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Ran into a guy online tonight that called himself that! He was pretty much just straight arminian. Kept talking about prevenient grace and how I didn't understand it.
Maybe someone can help me. In seeing this thread it brought to mind John MacArthur. He seems to speak out of each theology at different times. Is he Reformed or Arminian or is "Reformed Arminian" an accurate title for him, whereby merely speaking to a confused and disordered theology. Or I am the one confused?
Please do help me with this as I know many who stand behind his teachings.
Will Norman Geisler is a moderate Calvinist after all.
Wesleyan Thomas C. Oden of Drew University defines universal prevenient grace as, "...the grace that begins to enable one to choose further to cooperate with saving grace. By offering the will the restored capacity to respond to grace, the person then may freely and increasingly become an active, willing participant in receiving the conditions for justification." (John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), p. 243.)
The Arminian idea of prevenient seems to offset the noetic effects of the Fall such that the Total Depravity they speak of is merely hypothetical -- for all are given sufficient grace to believe if they will it.
It also boils down to the question of a monergistic vs a synergistic work of salvation.
Nice!I bet he thinks he has the free will to call himself what ever he likes!
It also boils down to the question of a monergistic vs a synergistic work of salvation.
Wesleyan Thomas C. Oden of Drew University defines universal prevenient grace as, "...the grace that begins to enable one to choose further to cooperate with saving grace. By offering the will the restored capacity to respond to grace, the person then may freely and increasingly become an active, willing participant in receiving the conditions for justification." (John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), p. 243.)
The Arminian idea of prevenient seems to offset the noetic effects of the Fall such that the Total Depravity they speak of is merely hypothetical -- for all are given sufficient grace to believe if they will it.
It also boils down to the question of a monergistic vs a synergistic work of salvation.
Do Arminians believe that people are born totally depraved and then after their birth, God bestows His prevenient grace upon them?
Do Arminians believe that God bestows His prevenient grace on everyone?
Do Arminians believe that people are born totally depraved and then after their birth, God bestows His prevenient grace upon them?
Do Arminians believe that God bestows His prevenient grace on everyone?
yes and yes.
Ran into a guy online tonight that called himself that! He was pretty much just straight arminian. Kept talking about prevenient grace and how I didn't understand it.
It also boils down to the question of a monergistic vs a synergistic work of salvation.
Yes, exactly, and differing conceptions of the effect of the fall.
The Arminian idea of prevenient seems to offset the noetic effects of the Fall such that the Total Depravity they speak of is merely hypothetical -- for all are given sufficient grace to believe if they will it.
It also boils down to the question of a monergistic vs a synergistic work of salvation.
The Arminian idea of prevenient seems to offset the noetic effects of the Fall such that the Total Depravity they speak of is merely hypothetical -- for all are given sufficient grace to believe if they will it.
It also boils down to the question of a monergistic vs a synergistic work of salvation.
Thank you, that was very helpful!
Now I understand it much better, because the Remonstrant article on depravity was not so close to Pelagius.
So it is through a universal, rather than a particular, concept of prevenient grace
that they reach their concept of universal enablement – all are able to believe.
And that, is truly Pelagian!
Amazing! How their distorted soteriology – trough their universal preceding or prevenient grace
- has a retro-effect on their own view of the noetic consequences of the fall on the mind - nous
Well, it’s good to «keep in mind» the biblical truth:
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
neither indeed can be. Romans 8:7 emphasis mine
.
Well, it is not so much, in my opinion, that Arminians are Pelagian, for Pelagians believe that they never fell so far as to lose themselves unto total depravity. True Arminians believe that they lost everything unto total depravity, but that God restored part of that loss, so that they can now choose to cooperate with his grace for salvation unto them. in my opinion, there is a vast difference between the Pelagian and the Arminian. Yet, I personally think both are wrong. The Remonstrants left Arminius, and went beyond what was really intended by him, from what I've read.
Well, it is not so much, in my opinion, that Arminians are Pelagian, for Pelagians believe that they never fell so far as to lose themselves unto total depravity. True Arminians believe that they lost everything unto total depravity, but that God restored part of that loss, so that they can now choose to cooperate with his grace for salvation unto them. in my opinion, there is a vast difference between the Pelagian and the Arminian. Yet, I personally think both are wrong. The Remonstrants left Arminius, and went beyond what was really intended by him, from what I've read.
Well you may be right, there is a difference of 12 centuries and 4 letters - Semi
But you know, when it has feathers like a duck, and quacks like a duck….
Obedience results from a decision of the mind. Pelagius (354 – ca. 420 ad.)
The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance. Augustine (354 - 430 ad.)
Thank you brother. Well I agree with you too.
That’s why the word I mentioned, for the Depravity article of the followers of Arminius, was breach.
My saying is that Pelagius was peeping through that fringe of two words on the article – free will.
In a quite appropriate Dutch context, Arminius was the hole in the dyke.
Not particularly to Holland. Thank the Lord, that He gave us the Synod of Dordrecht in due time.
To the Praise and Glory of His Grace.
But then 100 years later John Wesley said: the world is my parish!
And look where we are now in the Christendom. It's awfully sad!
What a mess….
.
Do Arminians believe that people are born totally depraved and then after their birth, God bestows His prevenient grace upon them?
Do Arminians believe that God bestows His prevenient grace on everyone?
yes and yes.
The Methodists presume of all people what many Presbyterians presume of their children (see McMahon's catechism) -- that they are born totally depraved, but that God regenerates them apart from the use of any intermediate human means (e.g. the preaching of the Word), preparing them to "choose God" as they advance in years. Interestingly, the Methodists tie this belief to their paedobaptism practice as well.
There are obviously some important differences, but the similarities are intriguing.