Grace Revealed: Intellectual Dishonesty

I briefly addressed the basic tenets of Arminianism HERE. Arminianism is, like its predecessors Gnosticism, Pelagianism, and semi-Pelagianism, a system which places salvation, ultimately, in the hands of man. To the Arminian, salvation occurs when a man “chooses” to “accept” the “gnosis” (which itself is true) that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, died and rose again, and is the savior of the world. Arminians hold to synergism – that salvation requires both God and man to act – therefore, salvation cannot occur without the work of both. However, the most useful argument of the early church fathers, reduction ad absurdium (reducing a claim to its logical final conclusion) is never applied to Arminian thought.

Well, it sometimes is. I applied it, and abandoned Arminianism, as all who honestly examine their theology must. For, at its core, Arminianism is entirely intellectually dishonest. While these words are charged, allow me to explain why I believe this to be so.

Arminians insist that God is sovereign, knows the future, and allows man to choose his own salvation. As UK John put it, “God comes as close as he can”, and allows us to make the decision.

I would assert that it is entirely intellectually honest to claim that God can have full foreknowledge and allow men to freely choose. Others would assert that this cannot be so, and say that foreknowledge of the Creator amounts to predestination. That is not my tack in this voyage.

Instead, I address the sovereignty of God, without asserting it is an ultimate end or starting point. As I asked John, “Please give me an example of one of the purposes of God that cannot be thwarted by man, yet still give man the full “freedom to choose”. Obviously, a human must be involved in the purpose. The creation of the universe would be one, but the interference of a man with a will is not a consideration there. This will help me immensely to overcome my conviction that Arminians are giving lip service to sovereignty.”

No answer ever came…because it is an impossibility.

Thus, we are faced with the reduction to absurdity. If God does have purposes for man, yet man can freely choose, there must therefore be purposes of God that man can thwart.
Furthermore, if man can freely choose, then the Incarnation was nothing more than a gamble. It would, therefore, be possible for Christ to have paid the price for no one, because every man could have rejected Him.

Arminianism is paradoxical, because somehow a man freely choosing accomplishes the purposes of God. How did this occur? Did God keep making people until the right decisions came about? Or, did God change his purposes to what man chose? Or, did God decide that what man chose really was his purpose? The appeal to “free will” is clearly not one born of a logical theology. It is one born of emotion, and yet something else.

It is an utter logical contradiction that God is in charge of the universe in any meaningful way (meaning, involving the eternal souls of men) yet allows men “free will”. If Arminianism is not a logical conclusion, from whence does it come? That will be my next to last post in this series.