Dave,
You have several invalid presuppositions in this short post, as the biblical evidence demonstrates:
1. Salvation does NOT depend on an act of the will - without God's provision of salvation. All salvation is provided by God (Eph 2:8-9). God has built into all human beings the free will to make alternate choices. God's provision of salvation is never contrary to his call to repentance and faith (involving human responsibility).
C H Spurgeon, a Calvinist, wrote of the connection between God's sovereignty and human responsibility:
The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but two; and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look at the two lines at once. For instance, I read one Book of the Bible, “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Yet I am taught, in another part of the same inspired Word, that “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” I see, in one place, God in providence presiding over all, and yet I see, and I cannot help seeing, that man acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions, in a great measure, to his own free will. Now, if I were to declare that man was so free to act that there was no control of God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other hand, I should declare that God so over-rules all things that man is not free enough to be responsible, I should be driven at once to Antinomianism or fatalism. That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent or contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained,
that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions,
that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be in eternity.
They are two lines that are so neatly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring (
source).
2. There is no 'false gospel' in God providing human beings with the responsibility to choose between alternatives when the Gospel is presented. The provision of salvation is God's doing. God has given human beings the ability to respond one of two ways. Spurgeon confirmed this teaching. So does the Bible in its call for people to repent and believe. The true gospel never states that God elects to salvation without human responding.
That is NOT a self-righteous act. It's an act for which God has made provision in the universe since the beginning of time.
3. 'The gospel is not an offer made to the self-righteous'. That's your interpretation of Arminianism. It is false. All Arminians I know affirm that 'all have sinned' and there is 'none righteous, no not one'. Your presupposition is false. Those who accept human responsibility (free will) as a response to God's salvation, are following God's orders.
Jacob Arminius believed in the doctrine of total inability. See:
Do Arminians Believe in Total Depravity?
4. 'It is an announcement of salvation for all who believe'. Is that your Calvinistic statement about regeneration preceding faith?
Even you fall into the trap of what you condemned in your post, 'for
all who believe'. Do they believe or does God believe for them?
Oz
