Bored Protestant

John 1:13 and 15:16 are proof texts that Calvinists use to try to establish their doctrines on scripture but it’s not surprising that those verses don’t prove reformed doctrine in any way. Let’s look at John 1 first “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” We see here that this verse is dealing with the new birth of man which no arminian denies as can be seen from theologians like Wesley “Who were born - Who became the sons of God, not of blood - Not by descent from Abraham, nor by the will of the flesh - By natural generation, nor by the will of man - Adopting them, but of God - By his Spirit.” We also see this in Thomas Coke he says “They who thus believed on him, became possessed of this privilege; not in consequence of their being born of blood, or of their being descended from the loins of the holy patriarchs, or sharing in circumcision and the blood of the sacrifices; nor could they ascribe it to the will of the flesh, or ...

"For Arminius, because of the gracious estimation of God, he credits our faith as our righteousness. The righteousness of Christ is not imputed to believers, according to at least the later Arminius. He did not believe Christ’s righteousness could be imputed. In discussing justification, Arminius made use of the Latin term acceptilatio, which means a “formal release from an obligation.” Imperfect faith, then, is accepted by God’s gracious estimation as righteousness. Or to put it another way, the human act of faith is by grace counted as evangelical righteousness, as if it were the complete fulfillment of the whole law, even though it is not."   This interesting quote comes from Mark Jones book Faith. Hope. Love.: The Christ-Centered Way to Grow in Grace. But the surprising thing here is that he does not cite Arminius which is surprising since he is making the claim that this is the view of Arminius. But I will prove this has no validity at all by looking at Armin...

Philip Van Limborch, an important Remonstrant theologian in his Body of Divinity has some interesting things to say about God’s decree. So the goal of this post is to just summarize what Limborch says in his Body of Divinity concerning the decrees of God.   Limborch starts with the divisions of the decree he first starts off with saying that the decrees of God are divided with respect to the objects and he gives some examples of this like the creation of the world,the sending of Christ in the world and things that God commands or forbids. When it comes to things that commands, Limborch says God “promotes by the Assistance of his Grace, whilst he would permit the latter for very wise and just Reasons.” Limborch makes sure to say that “this Assistance of God's Grace does not lay any constraint upon a Man to do what is good, but only bestows upon him a Power of Working, and is the very Principle of all Operation, without destroying Man's Free-will: Much lest does the ...

The reason why I’m writing this blog post is that I was reading through some of Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics, mainly the 2nd volume and he makes some bad critiques when it comes to the Remonstrants and a massive blunder. So I just want to go through the areas where Bavinck talks about the Remonstrants on the attributes of God. The first section will deal with immutability which Bavnick says the Remonstrants attacked then I will look at simplicity since those are the main areas where he talks about the Remonstrants and I’m not gonna talk about middle knowledge since Bavnick doesn’t make a mistake in attributing to them middle knowledge.  Bavinck on page 155 says “On the one hand, Pelagianism, Socinianism, Remonstantism and rationalism, which especially opposes the immutability of God knowing and willing and makes the will of God dependent on and hence change in accordance with the conducts of humans.”  But when we go to the Remostant confession we don’t see an attack on ...

Open theism a view which says God can't know the future contingents infallible. Some Christian's view this as a viable option because LFW is the only way to have moral responsibility but no Christian should accept open theism. Since this view comes from Socinians and there are answers to reconcile libertarian free will (LFW) and God's infallible knowledge of future contingents. Orthodox Arminians have gave answers to the objections that the follower's of Socinus and Calvinist. The standard objection is this "that the foreknowledge of contingent events, being in its own nature impossible, because it implies a contradiction." In simple terms God knowing future contingents infallible make them necessary so the Arminian view is no different than the Calvinist. But Richard Watson a great 19th century Methodist theologian in his Theological Institutes gave a great answer to this objection.   Watson makes a very important point that has to always be kept ...

Prevenient grace is an important and essential doctrine for all Arminians but what is the relation of it and the will when it comes to prevenient grace? I will say that prevenient grace is irresistible in one sense and resistible in another sense. And it's not uncommon for Arminian theologians to say prevenient grace is irresistible and I will give two examples of that. But first I need to define what prevenient grace is since it's meaning is essential to understand why I say it's irresistible.     I think William Burt Pope, one of the best Methodist theologians, gives a great definition of prevenient grace. "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 usually given it of Prevenient Grace."(1) Pope giv...

Verses 3-6   " Blessed be God, who hath blessed us " —God’s blessing us is his bestowing spiritual and heavenly blessings upon us. Our blessing God is the paying him our solemn and grateful acknowledgments, both on account of his own essential blessedness, and of the blessings which he bestows on us; " with all spiritual blessings" —The spiritual blessings here spoken of are such as are necessary to the perfection and happiness of our spirits; namely, the light of the gospel, the influences of the Spirit of God, the pardon of sin, adoption into God's family, the sanctification of our nature, and eternal life. These blessings are here opposed to the earthly blessings which were promised to the natural descendants of Abraham, the ancient church of God, which consisted in the possession of Canaan, in victory over their enemies, fruitful seasons, &c., as described Deut xxviii. To these, and such like blessings, Abraham's seed, by faith, were enti...