More fundamentally, this makes God and His plan of salvation dependent on man. Even more fundamentally, the dependency is upon sinfully dead and enslaved humans. Still even more fundamentally, this makes God and His plan of salvation dependent upon the ability of the sinfully dead and enslaved human to turn himself from an unbeliever to a believer.
There is the attempt to veil these fundamental problems (problems both scripturally and logically) with the concept of prevenient grace, the idea God works in the individual's life just enough to free the volition sufficiently to make that chose
while still a sinner, while still sinfully dead and enslaved and non-believing. Not only is there no mention of such a condition in scripture but it logically leads to the condition of an intermediate state in which the non-believer who was dead in sin but now liberated just enough to choose choosing not to believe in God and walking away partially changed, knowing God but refusing to believe. So where are the members of this intermediate group who know God but reject God? Those who have had their mind and will changed sufficiently to make the free will choice and chose to remain non-believers. Where are these liberated and enlightened non-believers?
Because I don't find them mentioned anywhere in the Bible, nor do I see them in the observance of everyday life.
These are places where Arminianism fails.
And I would like to add tangentially that I read an op that is now closed about Calvinism in which a lot of space was spent on the concept and doctrine of total depravity. Here's my comment:
Everyone but the Pelagian is an adherent of total depravity! Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Arminius, Wesley and the Traditionalists all acknowledge humanity's inability to come to God their own as a consequence of sin. Only the Pelagian views say something sufficient remained unaffected by sin. So all those who imagine themselves Arminian who deny what we now call total depravity... you're not Arminian.
"VII. In this state [the sinful state], the free will of man towards the true good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and weakened; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost. And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace. For Christ has said, 'Without me ye can do nothing.' St. Augustine, after having diligently meditated upon each word in this passage, speaks thus: 'Christ does not say, without me ye can do but Little; neither does He say, without me ye can do any Arduous Thing, nor without me ye can do it with difficulty. But he says, without me ye can do Nothing! Nor does he say, without me ye cannot complete any thing; but without me ye can do Nothing.'" (from "
Disputation 11"
Arminius was a one-point Calvinist. So was Wesley.
How then does the unbeliever make himself into a believer
before being saved?
S/He does not.
