{"id":1432,"date":"2006-10-16T02:20:12","date_gmt":"2006-10-16T02:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html"},"modified":"2006-10-16T02:20:12","modified_gmt":"2006-10-16T02:20:12","slug":"do-calvinists-understand-armin-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html","title":{"rendered":"Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Myth #6 in Roger Olson&#8217;s book, <em>Arminian Theology<\/em>, is another oft-repeated accusation against Arminians: that Arminian theology is a human-centered theology with an optimistic anthropology. In fact, Olson argues, Arminian theology is every bit as God-intoxicated as Calvinist theology when it comes to the centrality of God&#8217;s work in redemption. <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nThe basic accusation, filtered through some inconsistent Arminians, revolves around two themes: (1) that humans are only &#8220;damaged goods&#8221; rather than totally depraved [what I call comprehensive crackedness] and (2) the cross and gift of the Spirit renders all humans capable &#8212; but only as a result of grace, prevenient grace &#8212; of responding (or not rejecting) God&#8217;s grace.<br \/>\nI hope you can dip into his quotations from Arminius: thorough view of depravity and the absolute need of grace. &#8220;No man believes in Christ except him who has been previously disposed and prepared by preventing or preceding grace&#8221; (145).<br \/>\nHe raises the issue of Wesley&#8217;s preference (at times) for &#8220;deprivation&#8221; rather than &#8220;depravity,&#8221; but he also has some quotations that make it very clear that Wesley didn&#8217;t have a human-centered theology, but a theology rooted in grace.<br \/>\nHuman beings, then, in Arminian theology are simultaneously sinful and totally depraved and given, as a result of God&#8217;s grace, prevenient grace in order to respond.<br \/>\nOlson contends Arminians believe that &#8220;in redemption and creation, human beings are wholly dependent on God&#8217;s sustaining and renewing power for anything good, including an exercise of good will toward God and acceptance of God&#8217;s offer of salvation&#8221; (141).<br \/>\nOlson contends that, because of God&#8217;s prevenient grace, Arminians don&#8217;t really believe in &#8220;free&#8221; will but in a &#8220;freed&#8221; will &#8212; that is a will that has been set free by grace (through cross, resurrection, Pentecost) so that it can respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Myth #6 in Roger Olson&#8217;s book, Arminian Theology, is another oft-repeated accusation against Arminians: that Arminian theology is a human-centered theology with an optimistic anthropology. In fact, Olson argues, Arminian theology is every bit as God-intoxicated as Calvinist theology when it comes to the centrality of God&#8217;s work in redemption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,28,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-post-calvinism","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7 - Jesus Creed<\/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\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7 - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Myth #6 in Roger Olson&#8217;s book, Arminian Theology, is another oft-repeated accusation against Arminians: that Arminian theology is a human-centered theology with an optimistic anthropology. In fact, Olson argues, Arminian theology is every bit as God-intoxicated as Calvinist theology when it comes to the centrality of God&#8217;s work in redemption.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-16T02:20:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7 - Jesus Creed","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\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7 - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Myth #6 in Roger Olson&#8217;s book, Arminian Theology, is another oft-repeated accusation against Arminians: that Arminian theology is a human-centered theology with an optimistic anthropology. In fact, Olson argues, Arminian theology is every bit as God-intoxicated as Calvinist theology when it comes to the centrality of God&#8217;s work in redemption.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2006-10-16T02:20:12+00:00","author":"xscot mcknight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html","name":"Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7 - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-10-16T02:20:12+00:00","dateModified":"2006-10-16T02:20:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/do-calvinists-understand-armin-6.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Do Calvinists understand Arminianism? 7"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/9c0db2eaf4d047d76276f907b62843f0","name":"xscot mcknight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/1f0\/1f0cb0f88d1f99f6e05597a2de7f1949x96.jpg","caption":"xscot mcknight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/xscot-mcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/298"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}