Hi!
I have deeply studied both Calvinism and Arminianism and could never personally come to a conclusion myself. I believe it is a given that God must predestine things to a degree, though I don’t think he necessarily micromanages the universe or history.
I do find the Calvinist Perspective quite compelling, but I would like to debate with an Arminian to accurately hear their side and see if they can convince me of it.
Let’s start with grace. Resistible or irresistible, and why?
First of all, just from the standpoint of reason alone Calvinism makes little sense. Adam freely fell; this was a matter of the human will to begin with or else God would be in the position of telling Adam not to commit the sin that Adam
did commit while
wanting him to do so after all. But instead Adam
opposed the will of God and committed an essentially evil act that God could not be the author of. The ability to do so is the essence of man's freedom. And the human will has been the focus, the
prize so to speak, ever since.
Because if Calvinism is right, if salvation is nothing more than God regenerating a person without regard to their will, having already elected them to salvation, and failing to do so for the reprobate, then the entire history of the Fall of man and all the pain, suffering, struggle, and death that followed makes no sense whatsoever. God might as well have simply stocked heaven with the elect, and hell with the rest, from the beginning. He might as well have given Adam the grace not to sin and fall
at all.
But if, instead, there was a
reason for the Fall, if God allowed it knowing He could bring an even greater good out of it in the end, then the knowledge of evil, the experience of it, must play a role, a valuable one. And this experience allows man to gain the wisdom, in time, to change his mind about God, to change his
will, even as revelation and grace are also necessary components in this change. So that, as grace
precedes man's justification, establishing cooperation with man that he could not and would not achieve on his own, man can still say
no to that grace and reject it. God's whole purpose is to
draw man into justice rather than forcing him
because man's state of justice depends in part on his
willing it. God throws the life preserver without which man cannot possibly be saved and desires that man grab it, rather than forcing it upon him.
IOW, this world is a school where man can learn to hate and reject evil, to develop a hunger and thirst for righteousness, for
God, and so come to run like Prodigals back to the the Father who's been standing there all along with open arms.
Man's will was never totally corrupted but rather weakened, compromised. Once the Original Sin was committed, man was lost, "dead", spiritually separated from his Creator. He can't find his way back, but he can remain lost if he continues to prefer that state, that path, which Adam set him on.
