The Arminian Fundamentalist

I am grateful that almost every Calvinist I know is inconsistent. They don't actually  apply their systematic to the Scriptures. If they did, then they would have to concede that Jesus was a liar. Why? Because on Calvinism, mankind is dead in their trespasses in such a way as they cannot respond to anything, not even the Gospel. They are totally unable to do anything. According to Calvinism, the only way they can be saved is for God to resurrect them (to regenerate them) so that they can believe. Yes, Calvinism teaches that regeneration (being born again) must happen BEFORE a person can believe the Gospel. Why? Because they are dead.  But then according to Calvinists, when God gives His "effectual call" to a person, they are brought to life and made able to respond to, to believe the Gospel. And from beginning to end they are enabled by God to persevere in faith. If they are "effectually called" they will be saved no matter what!  So why is Jesus a liar accordin...

A lot of Christians believe it to be a waste of time and energy to contend for certain Christian doctrines and/or to oppose other Christian doctrines.  Shouldn't Christians simply try to unite over and against the non-Christian ideological and non-Christian religious forces of the world?  For many doctrines, I would agree wholeheartedly. I don't think Christians should be fighting each other with regard to Baptism, to Eschatology, to Church Government, to Communion, to the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc. etc. I'm not saying that there aren't correct views and incorrect ones with regard to all of the aforementioned doctrines, but none of them say anything essential about God's character and/or His essence.  In short, there  are lots of doctrines we can agree to disagree upon. Especially the doctrines that don't have anything to do with maligning God's character. Take for example the issue of the mode of baptism. Whether we sprinkle someone or immerse them enti...

There were NO CALVINISTS in the Early Church. No orthodox Christian theologian, apologist, and/or leader taught the doctrines today associated with Calvinism. I've cited many of them in this blog and can post quote after quote, passage after passage from Church leaders in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries who TO THE MAN taught against the way Calvinists understand the Scriptures today.  So, WHO was to blame for these teachings? Where did "Calvinism" come from? It ALL came from/through the North African theologian Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th Century. Previously, it was believed that Augustine's doctrinal change/shift came in AD397. More recent scholarship would argue that it wasn't until AD412 that he embraced the doctrines that ultimately became Calvinism. What is irrefutable is that it was Augustine who "introduced" the novel doctrines that today we call "Calvinism".  The irony of ironies is that one can find the doctrines of Calvinism i...

The funny thing about reading the Early Church Fathers is NO ONE remains a Calvinist after reading them honestly. Yes, Calvinist apologists will "cherry-pick" quotes from their writings, but if anyone were to read ALL of that writer, they will either have to hereticize them all as some kind of proto-semi-Pelagians and/or Pelagians or acknowledge that they were corrupted by Augustine and the Protestant Reformers.  I could literally do this all day, every day with hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of quotes from nearly every Church Father before Augustine (and after him especially amongst the Greek Fathers). There is simply NO Augustinian or Calvinist reading of the following quote from Athenagoras in the 2nd Century - he did NOT affirm the Calvinist/Reformed notion or understanding of total depravity (meaning 'total inability') or the bondage of the will. Those concepts were imported by Augustine from Gnostic Manichaeism, and pagan philosophy (Stoicism and neo-...

It's a toss up - What influenced Augustine more to abandon the Apostolic understanding of Original Sin, Predestination, and Grace (Augustine being the first to teach its irresistability)? Was it Gnostic Manichaeism or was it the pagan Stoicism and Neoplatonism? The former leading to the semi-Gnostic label. The latter two leading to the semi-Pagan one.  The irony of ironies is the charges of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism that Augustinian-Calvinists level at anyone and everyone who disagrees with them are mythological. Pelagius didn't believe any of the 14 charges Augustine leveled against him - he believe 1/2 of one of them. And Semi-Pelagianism is an a term invented in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, which again has NOTHING to do with Pelagius at all. But don't confuse Calvinists with the historical facts. Not a single Calvinist I have known has ever read a word of Pelagius' writings - most of them are largely unfamiliar with Augustine and his work. And like ...

I find, then, that man was constituted free by God. He was master of his own will and power. ...For a law would not be imposed upon one who did not have it in his power to render that obedience which is due to law. Nor again, would the penalty of death be threatened against sin, if a contempt of the law were impossible to man in the liberty of his will. ...Man is free, with a will either for obedience or resistance.  Tertullian (c. 207, W), 3.300,301.   As to fortune, it is man's freedom of will.  Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.201.   This will be the power of the grace of God—more potent indeed than nature—exercising its sway over the faculty that underlies itself within us: even the freedom of our will. ...We define the soul as having sprung from the breath of God. It is immortal...[and] free in its determinations.  Tertullian (c. 210, W), 3.202.