According to Dan, of the Arminian Chronicles:
“Between we have all manor of views, so I will just share my own. Perseverance is necessary for salvation. God preserves His people through middle knowledge, such that we can, but will not fall away. God, knowing how we will choose in various circumstances, puts us only in those circumstances that keep us in the faith. Breaking the Law of Moses could never causes us to loose [sic] our salvation, but unbelief could. But God keeps us from unbelief.”
http://www.arminianchronicles.com/search/label/H.5%20Perseverance
But according to Ben, of Arminian Perspectives:
“Arminians believe that it is necessary for the redeemed to persevere in saving faith in order to attain to eternal life in the age to come [final salvation]. We maintain that true believers who have experienced genuine regeneration can yet fall away from the faith and perish everlastingly. We take Jesus’ words in Matt. 10:22 both literally and seriously: ‘The one who endures till the end shall be saved’. We maintain that it is the believer’s responsibility to continue in saving faith, while acknowledging dependence on God’s grace and power to do so.”
http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/perseverance-of-the-saints-part-1-definitions/
“These verses [Heb 10:28-29] pose great difficulty for Calvinism and have endured some of the most unfortunate acts of exegetical torture by those who have desperately tried to keep their doctrines from suffering shipwreck on the plain implications of these verses.”
http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/perseverance-of-the-saints-part-6-hebrews-1026-30/
I assume that Ben, as a card-carrying Arminian, would never stoop to being a crass respecter of persons. Therefore, I assume that Ben will be the first to charge Dan with failing to take the words of Jesus literally or seriously. Instead, Dan is guilty of exegetical torture as he desperately tries to keep his doctrine from suffering shipwreck on the plain implications of Heb 10:28-29. Isn’t that right, Ben?
If God puts us only in circumstances that keep us in the faith how does this square with libertarian free will? Well you would’ve chosen otherwise IF you were placed in different circumstances??? Seems that with such a view that LFW has to go.
ReplyDeleteBetter yet, does this mean that God determines which circumstances we experience and since God knows how we will react in said circumstances we do not have the ability to choose otherwise in said circumstances? Again LFW would have to go.
More importantly, why didn't God do that with salvation then? That is, if God can use middle knowledge to keep people saved, why couldn't He use middle knowledge to save every person?
ReplyDeleteCould it be that God must sacrifice some people in order to save others under Arminianism, and that God must elect who He saves and who He does not?
"More importantly, why didn't God do that with salvation then? That is, if God can use middle knowledge to keep people saved, why couldn't He use middle knowledge to save every person?"
ReplyDeleteI asked a Middle Knowledge advocate that, once. He gave an answer to that question that might actually be valid.
The nutshell is that God can use middle knowledge to prevent any decision, but he can't use it to bring about any decision.
In other words, God can prevent a believer from getting in the circumstances that would lead to them deciding to fall away. But there might not be any set of circumstances that would lead a particular unbeliever to decide to believe.
Whether the whole middle knowledge scheme is compatible with LFW is another question--but middle knowledge at least seems to be consistent here.
Doesn't God "bring about" the decision that He wants by putting them in the circumstances that God choses?
ReplyDeleteYes, but (in the middle-knowledge idea) there isn't necessarily any circumstance that will lead a particular John Q. Sinner to repent & believe.
ReplyDeleteSo, supposedly, God can't get an arbitrary person to make any decision He wants--but He can prevent him from making a decision He doesn't want to happen.
He can't get any sinner to repent, but He can keep any believer from recanting.
Jugulum said:
ReplyDelete---
The nutshell is that God can use middle knowledge to prevent any decision, but he can't use it to bring about any decision.
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That's the way I've heard them go too. However, aside from the extremely ad hoc restriction imposed, this leaves the Molinist in a world of hurt.
After all, if it is the case that God cannot create the desire for Christ in any particular sinner, then how does one explain the vast numbers of people who refuse to come to Him and ANY possible universe? Would that kind of transworld depravity not be even more strident than the Calvinist's view of depravity?
Furthermore, of course, if an LFW agent actually cannot ever, in any universe, choose God, then so much for PAP ;-) (This goes back to Mitch's point in his first comment.)
"God can prevent any decision but can't bring about any decision" doesn't seem particularly ad hoc to me.
ReplyDeleteThe whole system seems ad hoc, in terms of lacking exegetical warrant. But that particular component seems to make sense in the system.
"After all, if it is the case that God cannot create the desire for Christ in any particular sinner, then how does one explain the vast numbers of people who refuse to come to Him and ANY possible universe?"
Well, that depends on whether they use the "greatest possible number of believers" idea. In that case, it's not necessarily "not ANY possible universe". It's just that the universes where they would repent entail other people not repenting.
Now that's an idea that strains my credulity. That this universe actually has the greatest possible number of believers. That God couldn't manage to save a single other person without entailing that two other people would be lost. I guess it's impossible to prove that wrong, but... Really?
"Would that kind of transworld depravity not be even more strident than the Calvinist's view of depravity?"
It might be. If I were compelled by the case for middle knowledge generally, I would say, "So what?"
But actually, no, the Calvinist idea of depravity is more strident, if that's what someone wants to call it. In our view, there are no possible worlds in which any person will come to Christ, without the direct work of the Spirit in our hearts. (Same in the classical Arminian view, for that matter, absent prevenient grace.)
Jugulum said:
ReplyDelete---
That this universe actually has the greatest possible number of believers. That God couldn't manage to save a single other person without entailing that two other people would be lost. I guess it's impossible to prove that wrong, but... Really?
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Actually, this was the point I was trying to get at in my first comment (although not very well, as I re-read what I wrote--and I should point out I'm a bit under the weather right now, and it probably shows in my typos etc.). Basically, if we accept that this is the universe where the most number of people are saved, such that if one more person is saved then two (or more) would be damned, then we're still left with God electing some to salvation and electing some to damnation.
After all, in Probable World A Adam believes and Bill and Charlie are damned; in Probable World B Adam is damned while Bill and Charlie believe. So God selects World B to actualize, thus condemning Adam to hell.
Since those who hold to middle knowledge tend to be Arminian (as no Calvinist has need of such a notion), and most Arminians are so because they are uncomfortable with the idea of election in the first place, such a tension with smuggled election and "unfair" damning of someone who would otherwise be saved is deliciously ironic for me :-D
I find it hard to understand how one can hold to LFW and believe that God puts us in circumstances where He knows what we will do and not do. That seems to go against LFW as commonly defined by Arminians/Molinists, the PAP view.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand Dan view correctly God only places us in circumstances that lead to one particular outcome, but that is at odds with PAP.
Of course I could just be missing how one could hold the view expressed by Dan and still believe in LFW.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI doubt my interpretation of Hebrews 10:26-29 is different than Ben's. We both think it teaches true believers can fall away.
God be with you,
Dan
GODISMYJUDGE SAID:
ReplyDelete"I doubt my interpretation of Hebrews 10:26-29 is different than Ben's. We both think it teaches true believers can fall away."
You're equivocating. The question is whether that's a live possibility. You (Dan) don't believe there are any real world circumstances under which true believer will actually commit apostasy. Ben can't sincerely attack the Reformed doctrine of perseverance while giving yours (the functional equivalent) a pass. If he makes allowance for your position, he must make allowance for the Reformed.