Calvin­ism, Armini­an­ism, and the Mid­dle Road

I will be delib­er­ately sim­pli­fy­ing things in this post; I fully real­ize that the par­tic­u­lar teach­ings men­tioned herein are much more nuanced than I will be express­ing. I also real­ize that within the groups ascrib­ing to these par­tic­u­lar teach­ings, there are a myr­iad of dif­fer­ences and par­tic­u­lar­i­ties of doc­trine; it is not my inten­tion to explain all of that here. Like­wise, there may be cer­tain peo­ple within a group which dis­agree with one or more things I am ascrib­ing to that group, and again that is fine. The bot­tom line is that this post is being writ­ten for a friend of mine in an attempt to answer her ques­tion, and I am bas­ing my answers largely upon my own per­sonal expe­ri­ence. You’re of course more than wel­come to ask ques­tions via the com­ments and even to debate these sub­jects at the Hall.

There are many dif­fer­ent takes on Chris­t­ian the­ol­ogy, and it itself is com­posed of a great many sub­jects. Some Chris­tians believe Satan was once a cherub named Lucifer who got a bit too big for his britches, so to speak; oth­ers believe that Satan & Lucifer are unre­lated enti­ties. Many Chris­tians today believe that there is yet a 1,000 year reign of Christ in Earth’s future; oth­ers rec­og­nize that “Mil­len­nial Reign” has being sym­bolic of the entire church age, no mat­ter how long it goes for.

And then there is the sub­ject of sal­va­tion itself, a sub­ject which touches on sin, free will, works, grace, mercy, judg­ment, sov­er­eignty, and so much more. Within Protes­tantism today there are two big “streams” of sal­va­tion the­ol­ogy (or from here on, sote­ri­ol­ogy): Armini­an­ism & Calvin­ism. ((There are also groups, such as the Roman Catholic Church, which make good works (the sacra­ments) a req­ui­site for sal­va­tion; I have too much dis­dain for such teach­ing to even con­sider it under the umbrella of “Chris­t­ian the­ol­ogy” and so will not go into it or other such works-​requiring sys­tems here.)) And basi­cally what I want to do here is give a brief intro­duc­tion to both sys­tems, start­ing with Arminianism:

Armini­an­ism

Armini­an­ism most broadly describes the the­ol­ogy affirmed by Jacobus Arminius (1560 – 1609). It’s pop­u­lar­ity is likely due in large part to John Wes­ley (1703 – 1791). You’ll find Armin­ian the­ol­ogy taught in Wes­leyan & Methodist churches as well as Nazarene churches. Basic Armin­ian sote­ri­ol­ogy could be described as follows:

1. Man is totally depraved, sin hav­ing affected every facet of his being; how­ever, God has granted enough grace to all men to allow them to either choose or reject Him.
2. Elec­tion to sal­va­tion is con­di­tional upon faith; in other words, the elect (i.e., the saved) are those who exer­cise faith in God and as a result were cho­sen by Him.
3. The atone­ment (or more accu­rately, the pro­pi­ti­a­tion) which Jesus accom­plished at Cal­vary was uni­ver­sal — for every man and woman who has ever lived and will ever live; it is thus unlim­ited in scope, yet its ben­e­fits are only bestowed upon those who believe unto salvation.
4. God’s grace for sal­va­tion is extended to every­one, and while He may work to draw unbe­liev­ers unto Him­self, they are capa­ble of resist­ing His will and remain­ing in their unbe­lief. In other words, man has unbound free will (at least regard­ing sal­va­tion) and is thus capa­ble of choos­ing or reject­ing God.
5. Because man has such free will, the sal­va­tion which they receive upon believ­ing is depen­dent upon their con­tin­u­ing in their faith. At any point a believer could repent of his belief and go back to his life of sin, los­ing any ben­e­fit of sal­va­tion which he once had. Like­wise, a believer through grow­ing and matur­ing could begin to live a truly holy life with­out sin. ((I noticed this par­tic­u­lar belief in the doc­trines of the Nazarene church of which I was tem­porar­ily a member.))
6. The Gospel mes­sage — that of grace through faith in (and only in) Jesus Christ on the basis of His life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion — should be preached to every one, for all have the abil­ity to be saved if they so choose.

So in sum­mary, we see that the Armin­ian view­point is that God saves those who He sees will have faith in Jesus Christ; any­one may exer­cise this faith, and many will. Some of them will fall away, but those who remain in their faith will be saved. God helps & aids believ­ers on their way, but ulti­mately the choice is theirs.

Per­haps a para­ble would help: Mankind is adrift in a river which is headed toward a water­fall. God is on the bank with His arm out­stretched, will­ing to save any­one who would take His hand. Most peo­ple reject the real­ity of the dan­ger and ulti­mately per­ish; how­ever, many choose to take God’s hand. At any time, how­ever, they may jump back into the river — at which point they could again choose to take God’s hand or remain in the river.

Calvin­ism

Calvin­ism most broadly describes the the­ol­ogy affirmed by John Calvin (1509 – 1564). Notable evan­ge­lists from his­tory which held to Calvin­ist the­ol­ogy include Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758) and Charles C. Spur­geon (1834 – 1892). ((I’m includ­ing two very promi­nent & fruit­ful evan­ge­lists here due sim­ply to the com­mon charge that Calvin­ists don’t evan­ge­lize or that some­how Calvin­ism is anti-​evangelism; his­tory, how­ever, dis­proves such an idea!)) You’ll find Calvin­ist the­ol­ogy taught in Pres­by­ter­ian & Con­gre­ga­tion­al­ist churches as well as Reformed Bap­tist churches. Basic Calvin­ist sote­ri­ol­ogy could be described as follows:

1. Man is totally depraved, sin hav­ing affected every facet of his being; left in this nat­ural state, man will never seek the true God but will only ever choose that which allows them to remain sinful.
2. Elec­tion to sal­va­tion is uncon­di­tional; in other words, the elect (i.e., the saved) are those whom God has cho­sen arbi­trar­ily, apart from any­thing inher­ent within those cho­sen (includ­ing their actions, beliefs, etc.).
3. The atone­ment (or more accu­rately, the pro­pi­ti­a­tion) which Jesus accom­plished at Cal­vary was not uni­ver­sal — Jesus died only for those whom God has cho­sen; it is thus lim­ited in scope, its ben­e­fits only being bestowed upon the chosen.
4. God’s grace in sal­va­tion is only bestowed to the elect, and when He thus exer­cises grace on a sin­ner, they will not resist it. In other words, God’s grace over­rides man’s inabil­ity to come to God, grants man this abil­ity, and drags man to Jesus for salvation.
5. Because sal­va­tion (even faith itself) is solely a work of God, the saved will per­se­vere in their faith; falling away from the faith com­pletely is a sign that a per­son was never truly a part of it in the first place. This per­se­ver­ance in faith does not pre­clude sin, and Calvin­ists rec­og­nize that until we are given new bod­ies, Chris­tians will con­tinue to sin, albeit not habitually.
6. The Gospel mes­sage — that of grace through faith in (and only in) Jesus Christ on the basis of His life, death, and res­ur­rec­tion — should be preached to every one because God has com­manded it, the preach­ing of the Gospel being the pri­mary means He has cho­sen to reach those He has chosen.

So in sum­mary, we see that the Calvin­ist view­point is that God saves those whom He has sov­er­eignly cho­sen; only they will exer­cise faith in God, and they will con­tinue in this faith through­out their lives. Regard­ing sal­va­tion itself, man brings noth­ing to the table — even his faith being the hand­i­work of God; sal­va­tion, from begin­ning to end, is cred­ited only to God.

Per­haps a para­ble would help: Mankind is adrift in a river which is headed toward a water­fall. While mankind seeks a great vari­ety of things to alle­vi­ate the sense of dan­ger — life pre­servers, life vests, float­ies, indif­fer­ence, and so on — none of them are a true help, and none are aware of where true help comes from. God, how­ever, is in a res­cue heli­copter which is unheard due to the rapids below. Prior to human­ity ever being in this river, God has cho­sen those He would save, and it is those which He plucks out of the river below, lift­ing them into the heli­copter so that they will remain with Him.

The Mid­dle Road

Oh my good­ness, I can­not believe I for­got that this posi­tion could be described as “Semi-​Pelagianism”! Chalk one up to my imper­fect mem­ory, and I tip my hat to Glen for remind­ing me of this title! Thanks, buddy!

I’m unsure if this posi­tion actu­ally has a name or not. Actu­ally, I’m really unsure just how com­mon this posi­tion is. I’m fairly cer­tain most inde­pen­dent, fun­da­men­tal Bap­tists believe this, and while there may very well be other more promi­nent teach­ers, David Cloud (1949-​) is the only one com­ing to mind at the moment.

And as the title of this sec­tion says, this really is a mid­dle of the road posi­tion; it takes ele­ments from both Calvin­ism & Armini­an­ism (but mostly Armini­an­ism) along with some “cus­tom” mod­i­fi­ca­tions. Of course, var­i­ous adher­ents of the Mid­dle Road view will have diverse (per­haps even wildly so) beliefs. This sum­ma­tion is based upon my own experiences.

Rather than re-​hash what has already been writ­ten, I will go down the six points as above as sim­ply as possible:

1. The Armin­ian view is taken with­out much modification.
2. The Armin­ian view is taken with­out much modification.
3. The Armin­ian view is taken with­out much modification.
4. The Armin­ian view is taken with­out much modification.
5. Not much of a mid­dle road so far, is it? Any­way, on this point, the Mid­dle Row views lean more Calvin­ist, adopt­ing what is com­monly called “once saved always saved.” Like the Calvin­ist “per­se­ver­ance of the saints,” this is a form of “eter­nal secu­rity”; unlike the Calvin­ists, how­ever, Mid­dle Road adher­ents believe that once a per­son is saved, it is pos­si­ble for them to leave their faith and once again adopt a life of sin. Because they were saved at one point, they are still saved.
6. The Armin­ian view is taken with­out much modification.

And That’s That

As I noted at the begin­ning, this was by no means meant to be in-​depth, com­pre­hen­sive, or any­thing of that nature, and I am very much open to sug­ges­tions on what should be added to these brief intros.

Why does any of this mat­ter? Shouldn’t churches be aloud to teach what they want, all the while remain­ing respect­ful of other churches? No. The above dif­fer­ences between the three view points rep­re­sent dif­fer­ences in their under­stand­ing of the Gospel, of God, and so on. Do you believe in a Jesus Christ who died for every man indis­crim­i­nately or in a Jesus Christ who died only for His elect? Do you believe in a God reach­ing out wait­ing on you to come to Him or in a God actively sav­ing those whom He has chosen?

The answers are impor­tant because, as you can see, whichever sys­tems are wrong are thus point­ing to a false christ or a false god. God is Truth, and He demands truth in wor­ship­ing Him.

Like­wise, because these issues regard cen­tral truths of the Gospel, it’s very pos­si­ble that to adhere to the false sys­tem is to adhere to a false gospel, which accord­ing to Gala­tians 1:8, 9 results in curse, not bless­ing or sal­va­tion (those who are saved are not under a curse).

As for me, I hold to the Calvin­ist view­point, believ­ing it to be in line with what the Bible teaches, ((Ulti­mately the Bible is my rule in faith & doc­trine; how­ever, Calvin­ism pro­vides a handy frame­work of the­ol­ogy which has proven trust­wor­thy enough to rely upon thus far.)) and I would be happy to explain why to any­one who asks. In the interim, how­ever, you can browse over to the Chris­t­ian Apolo­get­ics & Research Min­istry for their brief intro to Calvin­ism which includes all sorts of scrip­tural support.