Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Re: Predestination or Free Will
References: <9211031454.AA28858@inet-gw-1.pa.dec.com> <4exdcFy_NU00451eUT@irenaeus.mlo.dec.com>

ewanco@MLO.DEC.COM (Eric James Ewanco) writes:

>But second of all, what Arminius suggested is formally heretical, and
>always has been.  He insisted that man can choose God naturally, without
>the help of the Holy Spirit and without prevenient grace (grace that
>comes before the act).  This was condemned a long time ago (the heresy
>of Pelagianism) and thoroughly refuted by St. Augustine (which if you
>will recall, was a Catholic, and a Doctor of the Church.)  Catholic
>teaching is that no man can turn towards God without being enabled to do
>so by the grace of God.  Man on his own is wholly unable to choose God.

[The following summary is based on Carl Bangs, "Arminius: A Study in
the Dutch Reformation".  Quotations are from pp. 338-343.  They are in
turn quoted from Arminius, except in one case what Bangs is speaking.]

This is not what Arminius said.  His intent was to be consistent with
both the Reformed confessions and the Church Fathers.

Original sin (a term which he almost never used) was the result of
Adam's sin.  As a result, mankind was deprived of the perfection which
would have allowed us to remain righteous.  He saw original sin
primarily as a deprivation, i.e. as an absence of something that would
have been necessary to give us the ability to be righteous.

We still have free will of a sort, but not one that does us any good
for salvation.  It's free in the sense that it is still capable of
making choices.  But without the righteousness that is missing, it is
unable to accomplish any spiritual good.  "In this state, the free
will of man towards the true good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm,
bent, and weakened; but it is also imprisoned, destroyed, and lost.
And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be
assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatsoever except such as are
excited by divine grace."  That is, his free will is in bondage to
sin.  Arminius quotes from Bernard: "Take away free will, and nothing
will be left to save.  Take away grace, and nothing will be left as
the source of salvation.  This work cannot be effected without two
parties -- one, from whom it may come; the other, to whom or in whom
is may be wrought.  God is the author of salvation.  Free will only is
capable of being saved."

He talks of grace and free will cooperating.  But the cooperation is a
result of renewal by grace.  Cooperation has sometimes been used to
imply that the fall is not complete, and thus that man can still
contribute something to his salvation.  Arminius uses the term to
refer to a response, which can exist only because of grace.  He seems
to use the term because he does not want to refer salvation either
entirely to grace or entirely to man.  He does not want to refer it
entirely to grace, because it requires our response.  God deals with
us as people, not as an irresible force.  Bangs summarizes: "Man in
sin is unable to exercise his will to do any good at all except he be
regenerated and continually aided by grace.  The grace of God is a
gratuitous affection, infusion of the gifts of the Spirit, and
perpetual assistance which is "the commencement, the continuance, and
the consummation of all good," but it is not an "irresistible force"".
[p 313]

He believes that grace can be resisted.  "Whomsoever God calls, he
calls them seriously, with a will desirous of their repentance and
salvation."  Thus God does not predestine some to destruction.  "The
whole controversy reduces itself to this question, 'Is the grace of
God a certain irresistible force?' ... I believe that many persons
resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace that is offered." Bangs
comments "For him grace is not a force; it is a Person, the Holy
Spiit, and in personal relationships there cannot be the sheer
overpowering of one person by another."

I believe this position is roughly similar to that of modern
evangelicals and also to the treatments by Orange and Trent.