I see that Scott Christensen, a TMS alumnus, has been trying to reason which Billy Birch. Here’s the quality of argumentation he’s been subjected to for his patient labors:
William Watson Birch said...
Isn't debating this issue with us rather gratuitous? I mean, God has predetermined that we be Arminian, just as he has predetermined that you are a Calvinist. Nothing you can say or do could change that. So, why bother?
This is your fatalistic theology.
http://classicalarminianism.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-pipers-ill-counsel-to.html#comment-5379034912445082454
Of course, Billy’s rejoinder is both nonsensical and self-defeating:
i) To begin with, the fact that God has predetermined somebody to be Arminian as of now hardly means that God has predetermined him to be Arminian for the rest of his life. The decree, by itself, in no way precludes someone from changing his religious affiliation. It all depends on what God has decreed.
Is Birch so ignorant of Calvinism that he can’t think that far ahead?
ii) And as far as immutability is concerned, if God has foreseen that somebody will be a Calvinist or Arminian or whatever, then nothing that Billy and other Arminian apologists say or do can change what God has foreseen.
It would behoove Billy to think with his brain rather than his spleen. His knee-jerk hatred of Reformed theology constantly betrays him into bungling one argument after another. He’s a poor spokesman for the cause he represents. Of course, that’s fine with me. I’m not the one who’s ill-served by that representative.
I recently commented on this very blog that I have been an Evangelical Protestant Christian for some 33 years now. The first 17 years of that time was spent as an Arminian, so I am very familiar with that mode of thought.
ReplyDeleteWhen presented with the doctrines of grace, in my case, my eyes were opened immediately by God in His grace. This knowledge, far from puffing up, brought me low and filled me with fear and trembling as I contemplated all the implications of what God has revealed to us in His Word. I finally understood that I am not the ultimate arbiter of my own salvation.
We must ask ourselves, can God change our thinking, or are we "stuck" wherever we are at any given moment?
Do we believe in the Holy Spirit's work of sanctification as He grows our thinking and behaviour, or don't we?
Some Arminians, like Dwight Moody and Billy Graham, are men of great piety and sanctity. It's a pity that more Arminian epologists don't take after them.
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