Are Arminians closer to Provisionists than the Reformed? No

 

There has been question floating around twitter on if Arminians are close to the Provisionists in soteriology. When I see the question, I already answer without a second thought that we aren't are close to them. But I want to explain my reasoning on why I say this since some would think because we aren't Reformed, we should be close in our soteriology.

Man After the Fall

This is where any talk about soteriology should start since our view of man will impact areas like man's will, grace and most importantly the Holy Spirit's role in salvation of man. Now first we need to cover the Arminian view on man and as article 7&8 of the 25 articles of religion explains about man it says "Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk), but it is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually." Then the very next article says "The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will." Now when you compare this to the Provisionists we see something in which no sober minded man could even say is close to our theology. The statement of faith on soteriology 101 websites says this on the sinfulness of man "We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell.

We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty (?) before he has personally sinned. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, we deny that any sinner is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel." We see here that there's no affirmation of man's nature as being sinful, only that it's inclined to sin which falls under condemnation of our own Methodist articles and early church councils as being pelagian. The denial shows that faith is just a natural ability of man which was never lost or really even hurt after the fall. So when it comes to man after the fall the Arminian is in no way close to the Provisionist view and as our Methodist divines like Samuel Wakefield says about man's corruption "True Arminianism, therefore, as fully as Calvinism, admits the total depravity of human nature in consequence of the fall of our first parents; and to represent this doctrine as being exclusively Calvinistic, which has often been done, it an entire delusion." Now someone who knows about this would ask me why are you even bringing this up Provisionists already conceded this point? The reason I bring this up is because this will impact and show the difference between us Arminians and Provisionists on the question of grace and the Holy Spirit.

Grace and the Role of the Holy Spirit in salvation

Grace and the Holy Spirit are very important to understand since the Arminian and Provisionist have different definitions of these two things. First the Arminian view needs to be defined on what we mean by grace and the Holy Spirit’s role. Let's first see what Methodist theologians have said about grace. Richard Watson says in his theological dictionary that grace is "In theological language grace also signifies divine influence upon the soul; and it derives the name from this being the effect of the great grace or favor of God to mankind." The key phrasing to keep in mind is that grace is a "divine influence upon the soul" so we see that grace for the Arminian is the Holy Spirit having an effect on the soul of man which means the Spirit is affecting all the faculties of man. Next, we have the premier Methodist theologian William Burt Pope masterfully explaining grace and the work of the Holy Spirit. He says in his second volume of his Compendium of Christian theology he says "The grace which bringeth salvation is the fountain of Divine loving kindness to mankind, undeserving and impotent; exhibited once for all in the redeeming mission of Christ; and exercised in the administration of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Grace, throughout the whole range of his saving work. It is the sole, efficient cause of all spiritual good in man: of the beginning, continuance, and consummation of religion in the human soul. The manifestation of Divine influence which precedes the full regenerate life receives no special name in Scripture; but it is so described as to warrant the designation of Prevenient Grace." Grace is understood to be administered by the Holy Spirit to man's soul and that would also include his will, affections, mind and heart which Pope says on the internal function of the Spirit "His internal function is the exercise of Divine power on the heart, or within the soul: to the unconverted in infusing the grace of penitence and the power of faith, issuing in an effectual inward conversion; to the believer in renewing the soul by communicating a new spiritual life, and carrying on the entire work of sanctification to its utmost issues, as we shall hereafter see." The Arminian says nothing really new since grace and the Holy spirit as working on the soul, heart or will of men is how church councils spoke when the pelagian heresy came up. Here are some canons from the council of orange (529) canon 5 "If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism-if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ'' (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God'' (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers. `` 

Canon 6 "If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10)." and finally Canon 7 "If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5)." Then these last two quotes will help to hammer in the Arminian view and show the continuity we have with the early church. . Arminius says, "It is an infusion (both into the human understanding and into the will and affections,) of all those gifts of the Holy Spirit which appertain to the regeneration and renewing of man as such as faith, hope, charity, etc.; for, without these gracious gifts, man is not sufficient to think, will, or do anything that is good." Then the five articles of remonstrance says something very close to Arminius "That man does not posses saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free will, inasmuch as in his state of apostasy and sin he can of and by himself neither think, will, nor do anything that is truly good (such as saving Faith eminently is); but that it is necessary that he be born again of God in Christ, through his Holy Spirit, and renewed in understanding, inclination, and will, and all his faculties, in order that he may rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good, according to the Word of Christ, John 15:5, “Without me you can do nothing.” Now let's look at the provisionists view of grace and Spirit's role in salvation since we will see a radical difference between both views.

In the traditionalist statement on the grace of God it says, "We affirm that grace is God’s generous decision to provide salvation for any person by taking all of the initiative in providing atonement, in freely offering the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in uniting the believer to Christ through the Holy Spirit by faith." In the video by Provisionist perspective where they go over the traditionalist statement, they said this proves that the label of semi pelagianism to be false since they affirm God takes all the initiative in man's salvation. But there are two problems with the article which makes the label semi pelagian to be true. First provisionists affirm that faith or more specific the power to believe was never hurt or lost after the fall so they already fall into the condemnation of the early church canons like the Council of Orange since the will of man never needs to be inspired or infused by the Holy Spirit. Now they will say we believe the Spirit plays a role in salvation and they do but they redefine the work of the Spirit in salvation to something entirely new. As Leighton Flowers points to the Spirit's role in authoring, inspiring, preserving and dispersing the Gospel. But that's it when it comes to the role of the Holy Spirit since he affirms that the means are effective to achieve their ends without needing the Holy Spirit to work through it. In this case the gospel is effective without the Spirit working through it because the Gospel is inspired by the Holy Spirit. We see here no talk about the Spirit infusing or affecting man's will or heart to enable him to believe so the Spirit is just the author of the Gospel but never works through it since as Leighton affirms the Gospel is all powerful since the Holy Spirit authored it. So, with this information and now understanding the role of the Holy Spirit they affirm when it says "freely offering the Gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit" this does not mean at all the Holy Spirit working through the gospel and infusing or inspiring man's will or heart but that the Gospel is inspired by the Holy Spirit so the necessary knowledge which man lacked was given for him to exercise his natural ability to believe.

Conclusion  

In conclusion we see that Arminans aren't that close to Provisionists since they fall under the label of semi pelagianism and redefine the Holy Spirit’s role.  So, the Arminian is closer to the Reformed-on man's nature, grace and the Holy Spirit's role in the salvation of sinners. As Arminius says on the only difference which he had with the Reformed was about the mode of operation of grace "That is, the controversy does not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace, (for I acknowledge and inculcate as many of these actions or operations as any man ever did,) but it relates solely to the mode of operation, whether it be irresistible or not." So just because we Arminians affirm universal atonement and God’s universal salvific will doesn't mean we are closer to Provisionists since we have no agreement on man's nature, will, grace or the Holy Spirit's role in salvation. If a provisionist or someone tries to make this claim it shows, they lack any rigorous knowledge about Arminian theology since just one look at our theologians and you will see a massive gulf between us and the semi pelagians. Finally, to end this blog post by answering the question on if Arminans are closer to the provisionists or the Reformed I would say without hesitation that we are closer to the Reformed then the semi pelagians.