Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Prevenient Grace and Why It Matters to Arminians and Calvinists Alike

Prevenient Grace: Why It Matters

by Roger Olson
June 7, 2012
Comments

This is a follow up to my earlier post regarding the statement of the traditional Southern Baptist view of salvation by certain Southern Baptist non-Calvinist, non-Arminian pastors and theologians. If you have not read that post, go back and read it before reading this one. Here I am picking up where I left off there and taking some comments subsequent to it into account. (This article may also be found below at the bottom of this present article; and yes, it is a very short read and should be read first before preceding - res).

Also, here, I am not delving into the debate between Calvinists and Arminians over the nature of prevenient grace as irresistible or resistible. That’s certainly interesting and much discussed in evangelical and Baptist circles, but here I am simply talking about prevenient grace AS IT IS BELIEVED BY BOTH CALVINISTS AND ARMINIANS.

Most people associate “prevenient grace” with Arminianism, but that is something of an accident of historical theology. Calvinists also believe in prevenient grace.Prevenient grace” is simply a term for the grace of God that goes before, prepares the way, enables, assists the sinner’s repentance and faith (conversion). According to  (i) classical Calvinism this prevenient grace is always efficacious and given only to the elect through the gospel; it effects conversion. According to (ii) classical Arminianism it is an operation of the Holy Spirit that frees the sinner’s will from bondage to sin and convicts, calls, illumines and enables the sinner to respond to the gospel call with repentance and faith (conversion). [It does not however demand that the sinner converts, only that s/he may now be enable to convert through the properly freed use of her/his free will. Consequently prevenient grace is given to all men, both elect as well as non-elect.  - res]

Calvinists and Arminians agree, against Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, that the sinner’s will is so depraved and bound to sin that it cannot respond positively to the gospel call without supernatural grace.

One commenter here attempted to use 19th century Methodist Arminian theologian William Burton Pope to say that Arminianism does not necessarily believe what I wrote above. However, here is a quote from Pope that absolutely contradicts that and affirms the necessity of prevenient grace because the fallen will of the sinner is helpless without it: “No ability remains in man to return to God; and this avowal concedes and vindicates the pith of original sin as internal. The natural man…is without the power even to co-operate with Divine influence. The co-operation with grace is of grace. Thus it keeps itself for ever safe from Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism.” (A Compendium of Christian Theology [New York: Phillips & Hunt, n.d.] 2:47) (I provide other quotes from Pope to support my contention that he believed in the necessity of prevenient grace due to bondage of the will to sin and inability to cooperate with grace on page 152 of Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities).

All agree that Pelagianism is rank heresy. It was outrightly condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. Both the magisterial and radical reformers (at least the leading Anabaptists) condemned it as it is traditionally understood to mean (which Pelagius may or may not have meant—he was often ambiguous) that the human person, even after the fall, is capable of achieving saving righteousness apart from supernatural grace.

What is more often misunderstood and debated is the nature of semi-Pelagianism. The only monograph in English that I know of is Divine Grace and Human Agency: A Study of the Semi-Pelagian Controversy by Rebecca Harden Weaver (Union Theological Seminary of Virginia) (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996). Weaver recounts the whole history of the debate over original sin and grace that took place among monks between c.426 and 529. “Semi-Pelagianism” is a theological term coined much later to describe the teaching of certain semi-Augustinian monks of Marseilles (the “Massillians”) led especially by John Cassian. The essence of semi-Pelagianism is that, although humans are fallen and bent toward sin, and cannot achieve righteousness without supernatural grace, they are able apart from supernatural grace to exercise a good will toward God and God awaits that first exercise of a good will before he responds with forgiveness and regenerating grace. The initiative is on the human side. [To which both the classic Calvinist and the classic Armenian would hotly disagree, together, and with one accord.  - res]

As I demonstrate in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, Arminius and his faithful followers (Episcopius, Wesley, Fletcher, Watson, Summers, Pope, Miley, Wiley, et al.) adamantly rejected semi-Pelagianism and all, to a person, affirmed the necessity of supernatural grace for the first exercise of a good will toward God. I provide numerous quotes to that effect in the book. It is simply a blatant theological error to equate classical Arminianism with semi-Pelagianism. Unfortunately, there is a long history of making that error among Reformed theologians. Most of them rely on each other for their information about Arminianism and have not read Arminius. Some of them have read some of Wesley and try to single him out as an “inconsistent Calvinist.” That’s nonsense. There is no substantial disagreement between Arminius and Wesley on this or most other subjects (with the possible exception of so-called “eternal security” correctly called “inamissable grace”).

What have Baptists traditionally believed about prevenient grace? Well, of course, Particular Baptists (who appeared about forty years after the Baptist founders Smyth and Helwys and were Calvinists) have always emphasized the necessity of supernatural grace for the beginning of salvation. That’s not in debate. The question is: What have non-Calvinist Baptists believed about prevenient grace (which includes the question what have they believed about the incapacity of the will apart from it)?

It very may well be that the majority of Southern Baptists have believed and do believe that Adam’s fall did not result in the incapacitation of anyone’s will to respond to the gospel apart from supernatural grace. I have argued for a long time that semi-Pelagianism is the default theology of most American Christians of most denominations. The Baptist Faith and Message (1925, 1963) does not settle the issue as it does not speak directly to it.

So, let’s look back at the most important statement of faith of early General Baptists. (“General Baptist” is a term traditionally used for non-Calvinist Baptists.) The Orthodox Creed was written in 1678 in response to Second London Confession of Particular Baptists in 1677. The Orthodox Creed was written and signed (initially) by fifty-four messengers, elders and brethren of General Baptist congregations in England. (See W. L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith [Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1959], pp. 295-334)

Most scholars consider The Orthodox Creed a relatively reliable guide to what General, non-Calvinist Baptists believed in the first century of Baptist life. (Or its second century if you count Anabaptists such as Mennonites as baptists and forerunners of Baptists which I do.)

The Orthodox Creeds says that “man,” as a result of the fall of Adam, “wholly lost all ability, or liberty of will, to any spiritual good, for his eternal salvation, his will being now in bondage under sin and Satan, and therefore not able of his own strength to convert himself nor prepare himself thereunto, without God’s grace taketh away the enmity out of his will, and by his special grace, freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, enabling him to will freely and sincerely, that which is spiritually good….” (XX. Article “Of Free-Will in Man” Lumpkin, p. 312)

Clearly, unequivocally, 17th century Baptists believed in the incapacitation of the will due to sin and the necessity of special (supernatural) grace for the first movement of the will toward God.

Why? The consistent, constant testimony of Scripture is that human beings do not seek after (the true) God: Psalm 14 and Romans 3 are stand out passages to this effect. At the heart of Paul’s message is that all boasting is excluded because the person has nothing good that he or she has not received (from God). (1 Corinthians 4:12)

Theologically, semi-Pelagianism is shallow and opens the door to Pelagianism; it does not take seriously enough the helplessness of humanity or humanity’s total dependence on God for everything good. It also attributes an autonomy to the human being that elevates the person too high in relation to God. It also reduces the gift nature of salvation and opens the possibility that salvation can be at least partially earned or merited.

Only the doctrine of prevenient grace matches what Scripture says about the human condition and about salvation and protects the gospel from humanistic dilution.

Semi-Pelagianism was condemned by the Second Council of Orange in 529—as Calvinists love to point out. (Usually they use that against Arminianism as if it were semi-Pelagian which it is not. They often gloss over the fact that the council ALSO condemned belief that God ordains anyone to evil! [per Calvinism. - res])

Back to the statement of the traditional Southern Baptist belief about salvation. I am not accusing the authors or signers of semi-Pelagianism. But, as it stands, the statement affirms it, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It begs correction. When corrected, however, if it is ever corrected, to include the necessity of prevenient grace due to incapacitation of will, it will be an Arminian statement whether that term is used or admitted or not. The only reason I can think of why the authors won’t amend it is to avoid being Arminian. Is that good enough reason to rest in theological error?

*I would also add that the statement in its essence is built upon negatives... consequently, I would rewrite it as a series of positive affirmations rather than negative denials. - res


* * * * * * * * * *


Thoughts about “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/06/thoughts-about-%e2%80%9ca-statement-of-the-traditional-southern-baptist-understanding-of-gods-plan-of-salvation-%e2%80%9d/

No comments:

Post a Comment