Ask Cooper Anything 2: Arminianism vs. Calvinism

"Arminianism vs Reformed(Calvinism) and why?"
- Tim M.

I'm going to start this off by admitting that, until very recently, I couldn't have told you what the differences between Arminianism and Calvinism were. I had certainly heard of these terms, but I was not familiar with the details of the beliefs. I have now read over the entry found on Wikipedia. It was an interesting and informative read. For those who may also be somewhat unfamiliar with these theological concepts, here is a snippet from the Wikipedia article that summarizes the differences between Arminianism and Calvinism.

• Nature of election – Arminians hold that election to eternal salvation has the condition of faith attached. The Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election states that salvation cannot be earned or achieved and is therefore not conditional upon any human effort, so faith is not a condition of salvation but the divinely apportioned means to it. In other words, Arminians believe that they owe their election to their faith, whereas Calvinists believe that they owe their faith to their election.
• Nature of grace – Arminians believe that, through grace, God restores free will concerning salvation to all humanity, and each individual, therefore, is able either to accept the Gospel call through faith or resist it through unbelief. Calvinists hold that God's grace to enable salvation is given only to the elect and irresistibly leads to salvation.
• Extent of the atonement – Arminians, along with four-point Calvinists or Amyraldians, hold to a universal drawing and universal extent of atonement instead of the Calvinist doctrine that the drawing and atonement is limited in extent to the elect only, which many Calvinists prefer to call 'particular redemption'. Both sides (with the exception of hyper-Calvinists) believe the invitation of the gospel is universal and "must be presented to everyone [they] can reach without any distinction."
• Perseverance in faith – Arminians believe that future salvation and eternal life is secured in Christ and protected from all external forces but is conditional on remaining in Christ and can be lost through apostasy. Traditional Calvinists believe in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which says that because God chose some unto salvation and actually paid for their particular sins, he keeps them from apostasy and that those who do apostatize were never truly regenerated (that is, born again) or saved. Non-traditional Calvinists and other evangelicals advocate the similar but different doctrine of eternal security that teaches if a person was once saved, his or her salvation can never be in jeopardy, even if the person completely apostatizes.

After reading this, it was rather easy for me to determine that my beliefs line up much closer with the Arminian side. Basically, I believe that all humans have the chance to be saved, and that salvation requires some human effort. All that effort consists of is the belief in Jesus Christ as your savior. I believe we are saved because of the decision in our heart to follow Christ, not the other way around.

I believe that humans have free will to choose to either follow or reject Jesus. Humans have the ability to choose this world over Christ, and many do every day. Even if they feel the nudging from God, and there are people in their life that are pointing them in the right direction, they reject the notion of following God and instead choose the narrow path of the world. You can choose to have the world as your god and ignore the true God. This is part of free will. God wants each of us to choose to follow Him, but if our salvation is granted by predestined election, then it is not a choice for either the believers or the unbelievers. The first step in salvation was Jesus dying on the cross, but the second step is for each of us to make the choice in our heart to follow Him.

I believe atonement to be universal, available to all the world. Jesus died for every man and woman in the world, regardless of who you are or what you've done. I'm not special enough to be one of the "elect" that God chose to save; I'm saved because I've admitted that I am a sinner, and accepted that the blood of Jesus is the only thing that can save me. I feel eternally blessed that I was born into a loving, Christ-centered family, but that was a blessing and, frankly, quite lucky. I was not born into that family because I was "elect."

I also believe in the Arminian idea that one's salvation is secure, and yet, if one chooses to abandon their beliefs and turn their back on God, they can lose it. I would say, though, that once somebody has a true experience with God, and they come to a point where their mind takes their salvation from being belief to being fact, it would not be possible for them to turn around and then completely reject their faith. From my perspective, I will never turn my back on God. I have based so much of who I am and how I live my life on my belief that there is a God and He loves me. To disbelieve that would be to change who I am, to my very core. That core is the way it is because I see the existence of God as an unquestionable fact. I believe in God more than I believe in gravity. The proof of God is everywhere, from the peaks of the mountains to the depths of the sea, to the kaleidoscope of human diversity to the amazing animal and plant life in the world. To stop believing in God would be to betray everything I see and everything I feel. Atheists may scoff at this, but to stop believing in God would betray my own logic and rationale. It would break everything I know to be true.

I would contend that those who are in the faith and then leave it never actually allowed themselves to be fully immersed in the love of Christ. The question becomes this: were they ever truly saved? I find a hard time believing that anyone who was ever truly saved would then reject Jesus. That would be like rejecting oxygen and deciding it would be better to breath in dirt.