Selected Essays And Book Reviews

A person has just heard and responded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. By receiving Christ as Savior, he or she has become a Christian and been born into the family of God. However, based on this person's acceptance of God's Plan of Salvation, the following question needs to be asked. Did the newly saved individual practice his or her free right or free will to choose God, the Second Person of the Trinity, as Savior, or did God somehow, at some time in the past, make that choice for the person?

To answer this question, the four steps of theologizing shall be employed. First, all relevant data shall be gathered concerning the issue of free will versus predestined salvation. The beliefs of the early church shall be examined, including those of such men as Augustine, Pelagius, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Jacob Hermann. Second, the data shall be organized and arranged in a way that the study can proceed toward the most logical conclusions. In this second step, the views of Calvinism as they pertain to predestination will be discussed, along with the contrasting views of Arminianism. Third, the data shall be presented in a manner which will clearly show the appropriate conclusions. Commentary shall be offered on why neither the beliefs of Calvin nor those of Hermann, founder of Arminianism, can be totally accepted. Then, a reasonable compromise between these two extremes will yield a more satisfactory solution to this conflict over God's exact, prescient involvement in an individual's salvation. Fourth, the overall conclusion shall be defended. Several key Scripture verses will be considered to accomplish that purpose.

A. Historic Rise and Development of the Doctrine of Predestination. According to Mr. W. H. C. Frend, in The Rise of Christianity, initial thinking for predestination began to take shape when the Catholic bishop, Augustine, opposed a British monk, named Pelagius, on the issues of original sin, infant baptism, and predestination [1]. The timeframe for their despute was the early Fifth Century.

To Pelagius, the sin of Adam only had the effect of being a bad example for humanity or of being a bad influence on him. He maintained that man was not created with a depraved nature, but that he was born innocent and remained that way until he actually sinned. In his opinion, Adam's sin did not have any permanent or lasting negative consequences on humanity, neither did humanity experience any unique suffering or become corrupted because of that sin [2]. Pelagius believed that a person could be saved either by obeying God's law or by accepting the Gospel message. He believed that infant baptism did not have any regenerative benefit to the child, plus he rejected anything that even remotely resembled predestination [3]. As a result of their major differences, Augustine challenged Pelagius in these areas of doctrine. Augustine believed that each of us has a sin nature from birth as a direct result of Adam's original transgression. The passing of that nature from one generation to the next occurs by propagation because of Adam's original pollution. Augustine also thought that each of us is born already guilty in sin because of the original guilt caused by Adam's sin in the Garden. Because he accepted both Adam's original pollution and our guilt from Adam's original guilt and because Pelagius accepted neither, Augustine would not embrace Pelagius' belief that a person could be saved simply by never committing sin.

In the matter of infant baptism, Augustine believed that a child could get a special portion of God's grace if he or she were baptized early in life. In The History of Christian Doctrines, Mr. Louis Berkhof says that Augustine thought that infant baptism saved the child who died as a child, that it set apart the child who lived beyond his or her early years, and that it removed original sin or original guilt from the young individual [4]. Augustine did not accept Pelagius' view that infant baptism profited little. Lastly, he believed that a person could only receive God's grace if God had predetermined that he could. Therefore, he also differed with Pelagius on the issue of predestination.

In The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Mr. James Lindsay writes the following:

Augustine gave new prominence in his theory to the absolute will of God: he made Divine grace the only ground of man's salvation; it was to him the irresistable power working faith within the heart, and bringing freedom as its result. It was to him God's absolute predestination that determined who were believers [5].

Because of these beliefs, Augustine thought that God had foreknown and, therefore, had predetermined who would "freely" choose to do good and who would not. In Augustine's opinion, an all-knowing, all-powerful God can and does order particular events in a person's life any way He likes in order to point some to Him and others away from Him. Pelagius, on the other hand, rejected that thinking by suggesting that each man is created with the freedom to make such lifestyle choices for him or herself. In this particular battle between these two men over their respective doctrinal differences, Augustine prevailed. In 431, the Council of Ephesus branded Pelagius a heretic, and the conflict over predestination and free will was born.

According to Mr. Millard J. Erickson, in Christian Theology, Augustine won the battle with Pelagius, but when the whole matter was ended, theologians and the church still leaned toward a belief called semi-Pelagianism. This view, which was something of a compromise between the Augustinian viewpoint and Pelagianism, maintained a belief in original pollution. It still denied the original guilt, however, which Augustine would have said should be associated with Adam's sin. After his death, much of Augustine's terminology still received widespread acceptance. However, with the slant towards semi-Pelagianism, Mr. Erickson writes that the Synod of Orange in 529 "spoke in strong terms of the inability of man and the necessity of divine grace, but did not insist on absolute predestination . . . and irresistable grace [6]." Hence, Augustine's views on predestination were still alive, but somewhat milder than the scholar had originally proclaimed.

B. Predestination During The Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages, Augustine's views were still followed, but only to a point. During the Ninth Century, a monk named Gottschalk spoke of a kind of predestination for the reprobate, the idea being that God had predetermined not only that some would be saved but also that some would be lost. The teaching of this kind of double or two-way predestination was firmly established by this monk during that time. Nevertheless, he rejected the Augustinian idea of foreknowledge and predestination as being linked together [7].

A few hundred years later, Thomas Aquinas, in holding to the Augustinian teachings, recognized a relationship between predestination and grace. According to Mr. Lindsay, Aquinas thought that predestination had its foundation in the goodness of God and that it was a part of God's providence [8]. He made a distinction between God's general will and His special will, between that which pertained to His general desire that all should be saved and that which dealt with His actually electing some to salvation and rejecting others. Despite the Aquinas influence, though, the Catholic church of that period still slid back into the beliefs of Pelagius [9].

C. Predestination in Reformed Theology. During the Reformation, both Martin Luther and John Calvin favored the Augustinian beliefs concerning predestination. In 1524, Luther wrote "The Bondage of the Will" to defend his position on the subject. Later, as a diligent student of both Scriptures and of Augustine's writings, he reached his conclusions about predestination and presented them in his writings on Romans 8:28 and Romans 9:6-18. In 1552, in his Commentary on Romans, he stated that those who oppose predestination are merely responding to the wisdom of the flesh [10]. Finally, his "Formula of Concord," written in 1577, differed with Augustine on a few points by maintaining "a universal call [by God] along with a particular election, and it rejected the decree of reprobation [11]. Hence, Luther accepted predestination from the perspective that God does know beforehand who will and who will not receive Him and that He actively calls humanity to Himself through a universal call to all.

John Calvin also received and defended the Augustinian teachings on predestination. In A History of Christianity, Mr. Paul Johnson says that Calvin, by introducing the idea of predestination as being a part of God's Divine decree, carried those teachings to the next logical conclusion [12]. Mr. Lindsay, in the work already mentioned above, makes the same remark. Lindsay writes, "Salvation was, to Calvin, the execution of a Divine decree, which was supposed to fix the extent and condition of such salvation [13]." Like Gottschalk, Calvin taught double predestination, but according to Dr. Elmer Towns, in Theology For Today, Calvin may have moved a little away from his early predestination tendancies as he grew older [14]. Despite that possibility, however, the statements which exist today concerning this teaching still carry the Calvin name, even though the debate originally started with men like Augustine and Pelagius and was later picked up by Gottschalk, Aquinas, and Luther.

D. Predestination and the Rise of Arminianism. The conclusion which one reaches from the teachings of Calvinism and double predestination is that God creates some people for the express purpose of condemning them. This, of course, is in addition to those whom He has already elected to save. This belief is the same which was spoken about above and credited to Gottschalk during the Ninth Century. Mr. Erickson speaks of a man, named Theodore Koornhert, who had objected to that teaching, claiming that double predestination makes God the author of sin [15]. Jacob Hermann, who was also known by the Latin form of his name, Arminius, took on the task of challenging Koornhert. But as he studied Scriptures, particularly Romans 9, he began to turn away from his original belief in double predestination. Eventually, he modified his thinking to the point that he was accused of being a semi-Pelagian.

In predestination, according to Calvin, the belief is that God first decreed to save some and condemn others. Then, He decreed to provide salvation for those whom He had chosen to save. This view is called supralapsarianism and is the basic teaching of Calvinism. Hermann essentially reversed this relationship between decrees by saying that God had first decreed to provide salvation through Jesus. Then, He had decreed to save all those who would repent and believe. This contrasting view sums up the free will perspective of Arminianism. A third view, called sublapsarianism, agrees with Hermann on the decree to first provide salvation, but it is still Calvinistic in that it teaches that only a limited number of people are elected or chosen to be saved by the second decree. Concerning Arminianism, Lindsay writes the following:

Arminius gave grace supreme place, and made it, when welcome, pass into saving grace. . . . Arminianism holds the awakened human will to cooperate with Divine grace, in such wise that it rests with the human will whether the Divine grace is really accepted or rejected [16].

With predestination, the choice concerning salvation is made by God, whether the decree to elect comes before or after the decree to provide salvation. With the free will salvation presented by Hermann, the choice to receive or reject God rests solely with the individual.

According to Dr. Towns, a national senate of the church of the Netherlands met in Dort in 1618 to examine the teachings of Arminius. They rejected his overall teachings and reaffirmed the five points of John Calvin [17].

A. The Teachings of Predestination (Calvinism). As was just seen, Calvinists do not agree on whether the decree to provide salvation came before or after the decree to elect to salvation. They also do not agree on whether or not predestination applies to both the saved and the reprobate or just to the saved. Nevertheless, they do, in general, agree on the five points of Calvinism which are expressed by the acrostic "TULIP." These points are "T" for the (T)otal depravity of man, "U" for the (U)nconditional election of those who are chosen, "L" for Christ's (L)imited atonement, "I" for God's (I)rresistable grace, and "P" for the (P)erseverence of the saints.

Calvinists believe that man is totally depraved and that he is incapable of seeking God on his own. An earlier quote by Mr. Lindsay stated that Augustine thought that Divine grace was, or is, the only ground for man's salvation. This group of believers takes the Scriptural truthes of original pollution and original guilt to their extreme and concludes that man is in a totally helpless state, at the complete mercy of God. For those who are totally depraved and at the point of this complete helplessness, the second point of Calvinism expresses the unconditional election to which they are subject. If God chooses to bestow His grace upon them, then they will be saved. If He chooses not to, then they will be lost. According to this point, God is the One Who does the choosing, and each person's fate is governed by how He has chosen. Christ's limited atonement means that His sacrificial death on Calvary was limited in that it only applied to those who have been elected to be saved. Obviously, His death would not benefit those who had not been elected. The irresistable grace, which is point four, means that an individual cannot resist God's grace if God has chosen that person to be among the elect. The final point of Calvinism is perseverence of the saints. This means that those who have been chosen will also be given the grace to overcome all earthly obstacles and to persevere until the end.

B. The Teachings of Free Will Salvation (Arminianism). Hermann agreed with most theologians by saying that man is sinful and undone. However, based on II Peter 3:9, he also believed that God wants everyone to be saved and that "all persons are able to believe or to meet the conditions of salvation [18]." On the down side, Hermann did not accept the belief of original guilt, and he put too much of man's salvation on man. Both of these latter two views closely parallel those of the semi-Pelagians.

In Lectures in Systematic Theology, Dr. Henry C. Thiessen describes two types of election as they pertain to predestination. The first is "election based on prescience." Thiessen writes, "In this position, God in his foreknowledge foresaw those who would respond to his offer of salvation and actively elected them to salvation [19]." This type of election is very similar to the view which Luther had held and presented in the aforementioned "Formula of Concord." The second, "election based on choice," speaks of God as choosing some and not choosing others, a view which is more Augustinian [20]. Both of these types of election are Calvinistic approaches to predestination. Another view, which is more Arminian and not one of the two types of election, teaches that God stays out of the process altogether and allows each person the free will to make his or her own choice.

A. Rejecting Calvinism. In reviewing the claims of Calvinism, one cannot easily accept this manner of thinking. Calvinists, regardless of the type of election that one accepts, have described man as being totally helpless and incapable of freely choosing God on his own. This teaching is not consistent with the words of II Peter 3:9. If God truly is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish, then He would not make man so helpless. Second, the biblical teachings of Christ, concerning His being our sin Substitute, Redeemer, Propitiation, and Reconciler, refute the implications of a limited atonement. Finally, if God loves each of us, then choosing some to be saved and some to be lost does not make sense. His love for us would demand that we be free to choose or reject Him for ourself. Therefore, neither supralapsarianism, sublapsarianism, nor Calvinism, in general, are completely acceptable.

B. Rejecting Arminianism. Arminianism cannot be totally accepted, either, though. By denying original guilt, these believers have put salvation too much into the hands of the individual. For Arminians, failure to commit sin becomes their alternative path to God, yet this belief is not taught in the Bible. Also, by ignoring original guilt, they diminish the significance of Jesus and His death on the cross. Hence, both of these points, together, rob the believer of the security that one can have in Christ.

C. Finding the Right Compromise Between Two Extremes. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to deductively show that either absolute predestination or total free will is true. This is because neither the predestination of Calvinism nor the free will perspective of Arminianism completely resolve this conflict which has literally existed for centuries. Consequently, one must resort to more of an inductive, rather than deductive, kind of reasoning to arrive at the most logical conclusion.