{"id":134,"date":"2010-07-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fearofwhales\/2010\/07\/calvinism-v-arminianism.html"},"modified":"2011-06-16T03:36:15","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T07:36:15","slug":"calvinism-v-arminianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2010\/07\/calvinism-v-arminianism.html","title":{"rendered":"Calvinism V \u00a0Arminianism"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>It has been my contention for some time that most of the great debates  withing the church, having raged for centuries, are able to do so only  because both sides hold a piece of truth that the other misses.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Classic  examples would be Pre-trib V Post-trib, Traditional V Contemporary,  Complemantarian V Egalitarian, and perhaps most of all Calvinism V  Arminianism.<\/p>\n<p>The concept is that while each of those pairs are  mutually exclusive to one another (both cannot be true) the debate  continues to wage (unlike say, Trinitarianism V Modalism) because  neither is completely false and neither is absolutely true. Each give us  access to true things about God which the other obscures and vice  versa.<\/p>\n<p>Arminianism for instance, (the belief that we are  ultimately responsible for our eternal destination) is false if  Calvinism (the belief that god is ultimately responsible) is true. But  even if false, Arminianism exposes truths about God and the christian  life which Calvinism does not. The Arminian God is a god of love, a god  who desires for absolutely everyone to be with him in paradise, he is a  god of delegation, one who gives decisions of eternal importance into  the hands of sinners, and he is a god of self sacrifice, who is willing  to endure the absence of children he loves who don&#8217;t desire to live with  him eternally, mercifully creating for them a place far from him called  hell.<\/p>\n<p>Calvinists, while rejecting Arminianism would do well to  accept these truths about God (that he is loving delegating, and self  sacrificing) because they are true, and well illustrated through  Arminian theology.<\/p>\n<p>On the flip side Calvinism may be wrong, but  the god that Calvinism describes is nonetheless important. Calvinism&#8217;s  God is sovereign and glorious, in control of creation completely,  existing in absolute authority, and doing all ultimately for the only  cause which is really good, His own eternal glory. The God of Calvinism  is so great and mighty that justice itself bends to his will, he doesn&#8217;t  bow to some external reality that is justice but rather justice bows to  him, it is his creation. And we humans, in comparison to such greatness  are insignificant. So dirty so depraved as to be unable even to  surrender willfully to the salvation he offers. And he loves us all the  same.<\/p>\n<p>Arminians would do well to know these truths about God as  well (that he is sovereign and glorious and we are lost and depraved)  because they are also true, even if Calvinism is not.<\/p>\n<p>I can speak  only for myself as an Arminian to say that Although I know of course  that god is glorious, the concept of the glory of god as understood  calvinistically is unusual to me. \u201cSola Dei Gloria\u201d is not a phrase  frequently on my lips and I need to discipline myself to reexamine that  theology periodically and remind myself that Jesus is not just by  \u201cbuddy\u201d but a being of such indescribable greatness that he should find  me revolting by comparison. I suspect the same is true on the flip side  for Calvinists who know intellectually that God loves them (obviously)  but perhaps don&#8217;t often ponder how true it is, that God actually likes  them, who picture perhaps as infrequently as I picture God seated on his  sovereign throne, God looking down at them, and smiling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It has been my contention for some time that most of the great debates withing the church, having raged for centuries, are able to do so only because both sides hold a piece of truth that the other misses.&nbsp; Classic examples would be Pre-trib V Post-trib, Traditional V Contemporary, Complemantarian V Egalitarian, and perhaps most&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":391,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,54],"tags":[178,176,175,179,174,173,177],"class_list":["post-134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-debates","category-theology","tag-argument","tag-arminius","tag-calvin","tag-calvinism","tag-free-will","tag-predestination","tag-tulip"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Calvinism V \u00a0Arminianism - A Fear of Whales<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2010\/07\/calvinism-v-arminianism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Calvinism V \u00a0Arminianism - A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It has been my contention for some time that most of the great debates withing the church, having raged for centuries, are able to do so only because both sides hold a piece of truth that the other misses.&nbsp; Classic examples would be Pre-trib V Post-trib, Traditional V Contemporary, Complemantarian V Egalitarian, and perhaps most&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2010\/07\/calvinism-v-arminianism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"A Fear of Whales\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-07-25T04:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-16T07:36:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rgaffney\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Calvinism V \u00a0Arminianism - A Fear of Whales","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2010\/07\/calvinism-v-arminianism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Calvinism V \u00a0Arminianism - A Fear of Whales","og_description":"It has been my contention for some time that most of the great debates withing the church, having raged for centuries, are able to do so only because both sides hold a piece of truth that the other misses.&nbsp; 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