This is part of my series on “Soteriology” or the doctrine of Salvation.
Soteriology part 3a (currently missing, will repost at a future date)
So, what is Arminianism? Well there is Classical Arminianism and Wesleyan Arminianism; you can search for both if you are truly interested but in a nutshell they place a higher emphasis on free will than Calvinism.
They do agree with Orthodox Christianity on the five fundamentals of the faith (Inerrancy of Scripture, Deity of Christ, Vicarious Substitutionary Blood Atonement, Physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Bodily Return of Jesus) but disagree on things like original sin, eternal security and election. Stephen Ashby puts it this way:
Prior to being drawn and enabled, one is unable to believe… able only to resist. Having been drawn and enabled, but prior to regeneration, one is able to believe… able also to resist. After one believes, God then regenerates; one is able to continue believing… able also to resist. Upon resisting to the point of unbelief, one is unable again to believe… able only to resist
As you can see, they believe you can be truly saved and then sin yourself . This goes against the very nature of being “born again”, one cannot be born then unborn. Paul called himself the “Chief of Sinners” yet was still hailed as a man of faith, so did Paul really sin himself out of the hands of God; furthermore, if we as humans are responsible for loosing our salvation, we are, in some way, responsible for keeping it, which is not what the Bible teaches.
Also they redefine original sin; to quote Dr. Towns in his video lecture:
“Are you a sinner because you sin or do you sin because you are a sinner?” (Arminianism teaches the former) “I believe they [Armenians] have it backwards”
They believe you have to willfully sin in order to truly sin, whereas the Bible teaches that ignorance is not an excuse.
I in no way intended to put down anyone’s faith or belief system when writing this post; however, I do believe that we must always strive for correct theology even above and beyond the basic five fundamentals.
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