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Monday, March 28, 2011

Jerry Walls on Calvinism


Jerry Walls is a leading Arminian philosopher. Here he corrects a popular objection to Calvinism:

It is sometimes thought that Calvinism teaches that God forces us to do things against our will or compels us against our wishes. However, this is a serious misunderstanding of Calvinism. Look again at the passage above. It says that God enlightens the minds of the elect, that he renews their wills, changes their hearts, and so on. Consequently, God does not cause the elect to act against their wills, rather, he changes their wills so that when they come to Christ, they do so quite willingly. To be sure, they could not do otherwise—that is what makes it irresistible grace—but given how God has changed them internally, they do not want to do otherwise. They do exactly what God has determined them to do, and they do exactly what they want to do. They are both determined and free, in the sense that they do what they want to do. God causes them to have the beliefs and desires they do, and they act in accordance with those desires.

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