The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Pick Two (Who Got It Right: Calvinists or Arminians?)

*Reading an essay by George W. Sarris, “Predestination or Free Will? . . . The Debate Continues,” prompted me to post my thoughts on the subject. I agree with George that Calvinists and Arminians each got it right about a crucial component of God’s character—that He is absolutely sovereign and that He is unfailingly loving. And as George pointed out, we have a huge problem if we say, “God is loving, **BUT **He is also sovereignly just” or “God is sovereignly just, **BUT *He is also loving” because we thus create a conflict in His nature. The solution to the dilemma lies in rethinking a doctrine that both Calvinists and Arminians accept—eternal damnation. This essay is similar to Thomas Talbott’s discussion of three propositions that all have biblical warrant but cannot all be true.

A number of years ago I was trying to develop a budget for a project we were doing at the publishing company where I worked. My boss called me into her office to give me some guidelines and help me understand some of the obstacles to creating a high-quality product on time and on budget. She drew a triangle on a piece of paper and wrote one word at each vertex: Good, Fast, Cheap.

Triangle 1.pdf (37.9 KB)

Then she said, “Pick two. If you want it to be fast and good, it won’t be cheap. If you want good and cheap, it won’t be fast. And if you want fast and cheap, don’t expect it to be good.” In the publishing world it’s not an absolute impossibility to get high-quality work that is produced inexpensively and turned around quickly, but it’s highly unlikely that all three conditions will be met simultaneously.

We might draw a comparison to the spiritual realm with the following three propositions, all of which can be defended from the Bible: 1) God will redeem everyone Jesus died for; 2) Jesus died for the sins of the whole world; 3) Some people will never be redeemed. In this case, not only is it improbable that all three will be true—it’s impossible.

Triangle 2.pdf (40.9 KB)

Calvinists believe that God will redeem everyone Jesus died for (proposition 1). They also believe that He died for the elect, which means there are some people (the non-elect) who will never be redeemed (proposition 3). Arminians believe that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world (proposition 2), but there are some people who choose to reject Him so will not be redeemed (proposition 3).

You might be thinking, “The Bible teaches all three of these truths: God is able to save all those for whom Jesus died *and *Jesus died for the sins of the whole world *and *some people reject Jesus’ sacrifice for them and will be eternally separated from God. In His incomprehensible wisdom, which is far above our understanding, it can be so. I believe all three are true.”

But the idea that all three could be true is not a paradox, it is not a mystery, it is not one of those inscrutable enigmas that we just have to accept by faith (like the fact that God is three and God is one, or that Jesus is fully God and fully man). It is simply a logical impossibility, an irrational contradiction. If God will redeem everyone Jesus died for and some people are never redeemed, then Jesus did not die for the whole world. If He did die for the whole world but some are not redeemed, it means that God does not redeem everyone Jesus died for. If propositions 1 and 2 are true as stated—God will redeem everyone Jesus died for, and Jesus died for the whole world—then you have an airtight deductive argument that God will redeem the whole world, in which case proposition 3 is not true.

What are we to do? We want to be faithful to Scripture, and Scripture seems to teach all three of these truths, but they cannot all be true, as both Calvinists and Arminians fully understand. Both groups accept proposition 3, and they interpret Scripture in such a way as to defend their respective positions: Calvinists accept proposition 1 and add that Jesus died only for the elect; Arminians accept proposition 2 and say that because human beings have free will, some will reject Christ and therefore not be redeemed.

The only other possibility is that proposition 3 is not true. In that case, it could be true that God will redeem everyone Jesus died for and that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. The logical implication of those two truths is that God will redeem the whole world, which is another way of saying that He will save everyone. But if you even hint at that idea in a group of evangelical Christians, you are likely to get a very negative reaction—everything from skepticism to accusations of heresy.

Here’s the irony: If I believe that God will save everyone Jesus died for, that He will lose no one, I can find solid support for that belief from sound Calvinist theologians. If I believe that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, I can get equally good support from Arminian scholars. But if I believe both—and the full implications of believing both—I may be considered a heretic!

Calvinists have a saying that Jesus’ work on the cross is “sufficient for all, deficient for none, efficient only for those who believe.” Makes for a nice little aphorism, but to say it is efficient only for those who believe is just a euphemism for saying it is *not *efficient for everyone else. Not efficient? Not effective? It doesn’t work? For the majority of humanity? *Limited *atonement? Do we really want to make such implications about Jesus’ sacrifice for us?

Arminians have their own problems: Can human free will supersede God’s will that all come to repentance? If God can’t manage to save everyone Jesus died for, what does that say about His sovereignty and power? Is Satan more effective in accomplishing his purposes than God is in accomplishing His?

Obviously this is a very simplified presentation of the viewpoints, but we cannot for that reason just dismiss the arguments or say that the problem is a lack of understanding of the intricacies and nuances of the issue. If we are going to be intellectually honest, we need to grapple with these questions and be able to give a reasonable confession of our faith. I suggest that we need to hang onto the truths that God will save everyone Jesus died for and that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, and re-examine the assumption that some people are forever lost. God is *willing *to save, He is *able *to save, and nothing—not even our rebellion—can forever thwart His will.

Hi Diane,

Arminians have it right but need to understand that God literally never gives up on anybody in hell. :smiley:

Very well put together. Thanks! I like the triangle; it lays everything out in a visual way, which I find is helpful for me.

Arminians seem to recognize “free will” in a way that Calvinists do not. But the end result is the same. For Arminians believe that God “looks into the future”, and therefore knows positively what everyone will choose. Thus whatever happens could not have been otherwise. If God knows you will eat turnips tomorrow, then there’s no way you can refrain from eating turnips tomorrow. You unable to choose to refrain, or if you do have the free will to choose to refrain, you cannot carry out that choice. Your act of eating turnips tomorrow is just as inevitable from the Arminian point of view, as for the Calvinist.

The third position is that of open theism. Their belief is that, though God is omniscient, He does know know the logically unknowable. For the fact is, you CAN choose to refrain from eating turnips tomorrow, and you CAN carry out that choice.
The idea of knowing in advance what a person will choose is incompatible with the ability to choose, itself.

The Arminians simply fail to recognize what Paidion explained, they got it wrong too :slight_smile:

I like to present the Cal/Arm/UR debate using the following 4 statements.

  1. God is sovereign.
  2. God is love.
  3. God is just.
  4. God saves everyone.

Calvinism embraces 1 & 2, but rejects 3 & 4 because they believe God’s justice to equate ECT or Annihilation.
Arminianism embrace 3 & 3, bur rejects 1 & 4 because they believe God’s justice to equate ECT or Annihilation.
Universal Reconciliation embraces 1, 2, 3, & 4 because we equate justice with restoration and reconciliation, righteousness - everything being made right.

Thus UR is the most biblical. Not only do we have faith in God for our personal salvation, but we also have faith in God for the salvation of others. Calvinism and Arminianism have faith in God for their own salvation but not for the salvation of others. In Calvinism even personal assurance of salvation is somewhat questionable because how do I know I’m one of the elect and not just decieving myself. In Arminianism even personal assurance of salvation is somewhat questionable because how do I know that, well, my faith or life is good enough.

I agree, no one can know we, or anyone will be saved unless it is a done deal!

Hi Paidon and Gene (auggybendoggy),

I’ll first clarify that open theists/futurists see themselves as Arminians.

Traditional Arminians believe in “simple foreknowledge.” Simple foreknowledge means that God can foresee the outcome of all contingencies without determinism, while contingencies include the outcome of stochastic events and free-will decisions.

As you suggest, the mechanics of simple foreknowledge is inexplicable. (There is no known explanation for it.) Likewise, many such as yourselves and various open futurists say that God cannot possibly have simple foreknowledge. I lean in that direction, while that leaning occurred within the past year. I’m a practical open futurist. I believe that God has always known every possible outcome of every possible contingency and has always known the his best response to every possible outcome, which all open futurists believe. I also understand that simple foreknowledge would be of no help to God for his sovereign government of history. But I don’t absolutely reject that God is capable of simple foreknowledge in some mysterious way that makes no difference with divine sovereignty, so I refer to my open futurism as “practical” instead of “strong.”

Concerning traditional Calvinists, they say that God determines everything while humans mysteriously posses free will and responsibility for their decisions that God determined. This is a type of compatibalism. And in theories of compatibalism, the mechanics of free will in a determined universe is inexplicable.

Others with Calvinist leaning say that free will is an illusion. This is one type of incompatibilism, and open futurism is another type of incompatibilism.