Hello everyone my arminist friend has this argument against
1. unconditional election
2. Limited atonement
3. Irristible grace
I would love to know a well-versed Calvinists thoughts and rebuttals on this God bless.
- Unconditional Election
Arminians dispute the Calvinist claim that election is unconditional. We believe election is conditional upon a free choice on the part of a sinner to believe. This is evidenced throughout the Scripture since faith is always the condition of salvation. Now I am personally dissatisfied with many Arminian account of the doctrine of predestination. This is why I hold to Molinist-Arminianism. In actualizing any one of a number of possible world, God thereby predestinated all who were in this world to be saved. This predestination was not independent of their will, however. As Romans 8:29 says, whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate. Thus, predestination, on my view, is God’s actualization of a possible world based on His knowledge of who would freely choose to believe given the circumstances of any given possible world. This gives us strong doctrine of predestination while maintaining human responsibility in a way that does justice to the Biblical text.
- Limited Atonement
I won’t spend a lot of time here, but let me cite two verses against this view. 1 Tim. 2:6 , speaking of Jesus, says, “Who gave himself a ransom for all.” and 1 John 2:2 says of Jesus that “he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Reformed reinterpretations of these passages are strained and contradict the surrounding context.
- Irresistible Grace
Calvinists have this view that regeneration precedes faith, but I would submit that Scripture presents this as just the opposite. Faith precedes regeneration. Throughout Scripture we see that faith is always the condition of salvation. Scripture repeatedly declares, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Arminians interpret passages such as John 6:44 as speaking of prevenient grace, that is grace which enables a person to believe, but not compel them to believe. We believe God draws people, but that this drawing is resistible. Relationships require freedom in order to be meaningful, and since God desires a meaningful relationship with us we don’t believe God forces us to be in a relationship with Him. We believe God’s enabling grace illuminates us to our lost condition, and that this illumination allows us to decide to be saved as well as to not be. Furthermore, Scripture invariably teaches that salvation is contingent on the human’s choice to be saved. (Gal 3:26, Jn 1:12, Jn 5:24, Lk 7:50, Acts 16:31, Rom 10:9, 1 Cor 1:21, Eph 2:8-9). Scripture teaches grace is resistible (Gal 2:21, Heb 3:8 and 15, and 10:29, Eph 4:30)
