There are two great mysteries in this world that I don’t believe will ever be discovered while on this earth. One is the sovereignty of God and the free will of man, and the other is a Baptist committee. While the latter was just used as a writer’s tool of sucking you in, making you smile, and tempting you to read on, while lightening you up for the words ahead from a staunch Calvinist.
How is it possible to say that God is sovereign and yet we have free will to choose Him? Saying that man has the free will to choose God is by itself opposite of the definition of the sovereignty of God. The Arminian belief obviously takes God out of the center of salvation and puts man in the center of the salvation process, which completely contradicts the Bible, but at the same time, they want to say that God is still sovereign because He knows who will choose Him. There is a span that is larger than the Milky Way galaxy between saying that 1.) God chooses, or 2.) God knows who will choose Him. The latter portrays a weaker God who could not possibly be sovereign. Allow me to explain.
God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross so that we as sinners could spend eternity with Him, having been made holy by the perfect blood of the perfect sacrifice. If God did not choose us, then there is the possibility that no one would have ever come to faith in Christ and the death of Christ would have been in vain. If God was not in control of salvation, and man was, then it is completely possible and fair to say that at the death of Christ no one may have ever come to salvation in Christ. Did God just get lucky that some people have chosen Him? Is He wiping the sweat off His forehead and saying, “Whew! I’m glad that worked out!”?
Imagine this. You are falling off of a skyscraper. On your way down you see a flagpole sticking out of the side of the building. It’s not reaching out to you. It’s just there. You decide to grab it and you are saved. That flagpole was not in control of your salvation; you were. That’s what Arminianism says. What makes Calvinistic theology so beautiful is that it places God at the complete center. Instead of reaching out and grabbing a flagpole, we are caught by the hand of God. Praise God, He saved me!
Arminians, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. God is not sovereign in your beliefs. It is contradictory to believe so.
August 23, 2007 at 9:09 am
Hey Andrew. Glad you started a blog. I look forward to reading more.
October 2, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Dear Reformed Ninja, in response to your post,
“How is it possible to say that God is sovereign and yet we have free will to choose Him?”
God being sovereign is free to let us make a decision.
“Saying that man has the free will to choose God is by itself opposite of the definition of the sovereignty of God.”
Why is that? Complete power does not necessitate complete micro-management. That is badly over-simplified logic.
“The Arminian belief obviously takes God out of the center of salvation and puts man in the center of the salvation process, which completely contradicts the Bible…”
Untrue, for if God does not draw a man to Christ, then he cannot be saved. The only man at the center there is Christ.
“If God was not in control of salvation, and man was, then it is completely possible and fair to say that at the death of Christ no one may have ever come to salvation in Christ.”
That supposition is invalid, for God knew that many would believe in Christ. Also, no one is really arguing that God isn’t sovereign in salvation or doesn’t choose us, simply that He allows us to accept or reject Him.
“If God did not choose us, then there is the possibility that no one would have ever come to faith in Christ and the death of Christ would have been in vain…..Did God just get lucky that some people have chosen Him? Is He wiping the sweat off His forehead and saying, “Whew! I’m glad that worked out!”?”
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29)
I’m going with ‘No’ to that quesion. God does choose, but His foreknowledge plays into it as well. Just to point out, you aren’t addressing the issue of the all-knowing God being weak or non-sovereign at all, you’re just making very wild conjectures under the assumption that if Arminianism/Synergism is true, then God could not have known for sure that anyone would believe in Christ.
“Imagine this. You are falling off of a skyscraper. On your way down you see a flagpole sticking out of the side of the building. It’s not reaching out to you. It’s just there. You decide to grab it and you are saved. That flagpole was not in control of your salvation; you were.”
As opposed to Calvinism where you’re simply impaled on it. Arguments by analogy are cute, but prove nothing. It is true that salvation is contingent on men believing in Christ, yet it is also contingent with God choosing and drawing the sinner, this is why it is called ‘Synergism.’
“Arminians, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. God is not sovereign in your beliefs. It is contradictory to believe so.”
Again, you’ve not established why God is not allowed to let us have a limited free will. Why exactly is that contradictory? Are you saying that God cannot delegate to us free moral agency? Your strikes lack no vigor young ninja, but they are missing their mark entirely. Since you seem to believe that Synergism “completely contradicts the Bible,” then there’s something I pose to you: The Challenge to Reformed Theology by Scriptural Fact. I invite you to respond to it if you wish.