Calvin Vs ArminiusEssay Preview: Calvin Vs ArminiusReport this essayI-SearchPhillip PlagerPeriod 4I have attended Spirit of Hope United Methodist Church for all of my life. One day following communion I noticed a trend. We always used Welchs grape juice for our communion. Why was that? Was that just always the cheapest juice? I asked my pastor, I needed answers. It turned out Welchs was a Methodist company, and the juice itself was made for a non-alcoholic Methodist communion. For some reason I thought that this was so interesting. I then thought to myself “I am sure that our long tradition is ripe with interesting facts. Maybe I should check out this Wesley guy.”
So I started my journey and off to the Methodist library I went. I read a summation of the history of the Methodist church. It was moderately interesting, but not what I was looking for. I decided instead of reading biographical information on Wesley I wanted to hear what he had to say. He was an avid writer and his sermons and magazines are very well documented. This is where another trend was discovered. The name Arminius kept on surfacing. The title of one piece of literature was named “How to make good Armenians”. Later Wesley created the “Arminian magazine”, a periodical devoted to the concepts of Arminius. Interestingly enough, John Wesley never actually quoted Arminius once in any of the issues that bare his own name. So in thinking, “As a Methodist I should to be a good Arminian” I came to the conclusion that I needed to find out who Jacobus Arminius was.
In the paradigm of Newtonian physics, Christianity in America today can be separated into two main theological camps. These camps originated from two great scholars John Calvin and Jacobus (James) Arminius. The two main ideological groups that spawned from these men were Calvinism and Arminianism respectively. Other major theories exist such as the post-modern open theorists, or the new quantum physic philosophy, but do not nearly have the following as Arminians and Calvinists. I decided to refine my search. I was going to find the roots of these camps and then assess where their core ideology played into both my church and my spiritual life.
John Calvin was born in 1509 a French Catholic. He later converted to Presbyterian and served as the great protestant systemizer. He wrote volumes in the “Institute for Christian religion” which laid out a protestant foundation. He spoke often of predestination and preservation of salvation. He was known for using keywords such as “justification and sanctification”. Serving as a church politician, Calvin developed the Presbyterian Church into a democratic style government.
Arminius was born at Oudewater, Utrecht, on October 10, 1560. Armininus studied at the University of Leiden and obtained his doctorate. He became a pastor preaching reformation. Since it was a reformed pastors custom to preach through a book of the bible, Arminius began with Romans. When he was up to chapter 7 controversy erupted. He maintained that the “wretched man” spoken of there was the pre-Christian person, not the regenerate believer. His theological enemies pronounced him heterodox. They also accused him of “Pelagianism”, the heretical notion that the Fall has affected humankind so slightly that we can will ourselves, unaided, into fellowship with God. Arminius responded by writing of 5 major points were his theology differed from Calvin. The Calvinist rebuttal was the 5 points of Calvinism. Today the 5 points are characterized by the acronym T.U.L.I.P. These 5 concepts are where we can establish our protestant roots.
So I went on this “journey” to find out some interesting quarks about the Methodist church. I have learned quite a bit by this point, but I am just not satisfied. So far Phils Methodist quest, abridged version, goes follows: Wesley wanted me to be like Arminius, and Arminius didnt want me to be like Calvin, and Calvin didnt want me to be catholic. I knew Wesley didnt want me to be Catholic. I was confident I had a theological mess. It was time to turn to T.U.L.I.P.
Total depravity is the first pedal in the wedge issues of T.U.L.I.P. Arimius argued that humans are not spiritually helpless. That it is through a humans free will, inspired through God, which they turn to God. Faith is essentially a gift that sinners give to God. *Man gives a contribution towards his salvation. This theory put a lot of accountability on man. This would give you a strong reason to evangelize. In this ideology Jesus died for all of humankind, with all humans having the potential to reach the Kingdom of God. Calvins objection to this theory was that it takes away from Gods sovereignty. He believed that humans were inherently corrupt, and they did not have free choice to pull themselves from their sin. Only God *himself could pull a sinner to Christ. This thought makes Salvation a gift that God gives to the sinner, not visa versa. It has more emphasis on the strength and power of God. It makes humans, Gods creation, more pathetic under the light of God.
Somewhere in there you find an argument that the people of the United States, are the most immoral. You may think Jesus was the son of the devil, right.
The reason I disagree with the argument is that it ignores the fact that not only is the Bible a bad book, but there is actually a rich historical record in the Bible that helps explain its historical roots. According to our bible, Genesis 7-7 was the beginning of a new age of human culture, and in fact many of the things God tells us were the results of human actions in the age of Jesus.
Jesus never said that one of his slaves, Joseph, was the first to die. He did not have to fight for a spot in the army. He used not just soldiers to fight; he actually used the army to make people believe that he had died. As much as we look at past history, it doesn’t always look good, but it does a good job of showing that even a few slaves could have done the exact same thing.
What I’ve been saying all along about evolution, is that humans did not create these animals which would have to live in the cold, wet and dry, so they were created through natural forces. It was God Himself, the God of Creation who brought us all together to meet and enjoy some of our great blessings. Our natural human ancestors (humans) developed a strong connection with the environment so well in their bones that when they died or became very sick, they developed a strong bond with this natural soil. That’s why there are many references in Genesis 21 to the natural soil of earth, to allow more time for growth in the natural world.
But if you look at the facts in our evolutionary history, you’ll see that the earth is in a state of starvation, so it’s not hard to see why. It was the natural soil that allowed the human form of agriculture to flourish, but it’s not an exact science. We started to eat much more food at the beginning of the human history because of God’s direct direct influence in creating the environment that allowed us to get there. It’s hard to believe, but if this is what God allowed us to do, we are going down the same path now.
In the Bible, God used men who were able to understand Him’s purpose to give us the idea that humans were to be made of sin by God. We’re human today, we still know that. We still understand why it was necessary for us to become the slaves ourselves. As our ancestors said through God, God will work to free us from all of our sins, since we are all just the result of sinful actions we have taken, and God is going to be a good man if you’re gonna put yourself through the wringer of our sin.
And a final argument for the human religion is the importance of human history and our civilization. In our civilization, we can never create a new future as it would lead to more suffering and more degradation in our world than we have already experienced over the past few centuries. This is what Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke:
“Wherefore, brothers, let us look first towards our Lord Jesus, and then forward unto Him, and pray that He will comfort us, and grant us a life through faith, and for this cause we shall be happy. And let us rejoice, and let us worship and serve our God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac-and for this cause we shall be greatly glad.”
This all makes you want to believe that one day we’ll all be “just like Jesus”. This all makes you want to believe that humans are the ultimate problem in society. These
Somewhere in there you find an argument that the people of the United States, are the most immoral. You may think Jesus was the son of the devil, right.
The reason I disagree with the argument is that it ignores the fact that not only is the Bible a bad book, but there is actually a rich historical record in the Bible that helps explain its historical roots. According to our bible, Genesis 7-7 was the beginning of a new age of human culture, and in fact many of the things God tells us were the results of human actions in the age of Jesus.
Jesus never said that one of his slaves, Joseph, was the first to die. He did not have to fight for a spot in the army. He used not just soldiers to fight; he actually used the army to make people believe that he had died. As much as we look at past history, it doesn’t always look good, but it does a good job of showing that even a few slaves could have done the exact same thing.
What I’ve been saying all along about evolution, is that humans did not create these animals which would have to live in the cold, wet and dry, so they were created through natural forces. It was God Himself, the God of Creation who brought us all together to meet and enjoy some of our great blessings. Our natural human ancestors (humans) developed a strong connection with the environment so well in their bones that when they died or became very sick, they developed a strong bond with this natural soil. That’s why there are many references in Genesis 21 to the natural soil of earth, to allow more time for growth in the natural world.
But if you look at the facts in our evolutionary history, you’ll see that the earth is in a state of starvation, so it’s not hard to see why. It was the natural soil that allowed the human form of agriculture to flourish, but it’s not an exact science. We started to eat much more food at the beginning of the human history because of God’s direct direct influence in creating the environment that allowed us to get there. It’s hard to believe, but if this is what God allowed us to do, we are going down the same path now.
In the Bible, God used men who were able to understand Him’s purpose to give us the idea that humans were to be made of sin by God. We’re human today, we still know that. We still understand why it was necessary for us to become the slaves ourselves. As our ancestors said through God, God will work to free us from all of our sins, since we are all just the result of sinful actions we have taken, and God is going to be a good man if you’re gonna put yourself through the wringer of our sin.
And a final argument for the human religion is the importance of human history and our civilization. In our civilization, we can never create a new future as it would lead to more suffering and more degradation in our world than we have already experienced over the past few centuries. This is what Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke:
“Wherefore, brothers, let us look first towards our Lord Jesus, and then forward unto Him, and pray that He will comfort us, and grant us a life through faith, and for this cause we shall be happy. And let us rejoice, and let us worship and serve our God, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac-and for this cause we shall be greatly glad.”
This all makes you want to believe that one day we’ll all be “just like Jesus”. This all makes you want to believe that humans are the ultimate problem in society. These
Unconditional Election is the concept of those who are chosen for salvation. Arminius believed that before the creation of the world God chose who would be elected into salvation based upon their potential and the dictions they would make with their free will. The “election” was conditional. Calvin saw election as unconditional. This election was a process that God selected humans as a part of his great plan. God did not select individuals into salvation based upon foreseen faith, obedience, or repentance. This is a difficult concept to grasp. The concept of election was best illustrated to me through an analogy by Doug wiemmerscerch, a friend and part time theologian. He said that election was similar to a game of billiards. Under Calvins theory, before the shot was taken God would know absolutely were the balls would fall. In Arminius theory prior to the shot God would understand all of the potential combinations that would result from the shot about to be taken. This is one point where modern day philosophy would contradict Arminius. If God new the possible combinations for the shot, there is no way that *he could not have a role in the outcome in the shot. Calvin is scripturally supported on this point.
“This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but thechildren of the promise are reckoned as descendants though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that Gods purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, What shall we say then? Is there injustice on Gods part? By