Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Total war


Lately, SEA has been touting Brian Zahnd:


Notice the pattern we find among contemporary Arminians:

i) The God of Calvinism is morally monstrous

ii) The God of the OT is morally monstrous

iii) The God of penal substitution is morally monstrous

Increasingly, Arminians link these propositions–and others (e.g. the God of inerrancy is morally monstrous). They stand or fall together. 

Zahnd himself explicitly attacks penal substitution for the same reason he attacks Calvinism, just as Roger Olson explicitly attacks OT theism for the same reason he attacks Reformed theism:


Yet SEA touts both Olson and Zahnd. SEA might excuse this by laboring to compartmentalize the attack on Calvinism from the attack on Yahweh or the attack on penal substitution, yet Olson and Zahnd vigorously deny that compartmentalization. 

SEA's behavior is typical of Arminian apologetics. Total war. Attacking Calvinism is their overriding priority. If the cost of destroying Calvinism is to destroy inerrancy, OT theism, or penal substitution in the process, that's collateral damage. That's necessary to achieve the strategic objective. The mentality is like saying: We've tracked the FBI's Most Wanted to LA. We don't know where exactly, so let's nuke LA to make sure we get him. By killing everybody we ensure killing the primary target. Impugning Yahweh, impugning inerrancy, impugning penal substitution is the margin of error we need to nail Calvinism. 

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this article on "Warminians at SEA". It is truly shocking how far they have sunk.

    ReplyDelete