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Arminianism is a branch of Protestantism initiated in the early 17th century, based on the theological ideas of the Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius and his historic supporters known as Remonstrants. Dutch Arminianism was originally articulated in the Remonstrance (1610), a theological statement submitted to the States General of the Netherlands. This expressed an attempt to moderate the doctrines of Calvinism related to its interpretation of predestination.
Calvinism is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians. It emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible.
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism.
Total depravity is a Protestant theological doctrine derived from the concept of original sin. It teaches that, as a consequence of man's fall, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin as a result of their fallen nature and, apart from the efficacious (irresistible) or prevenient (enabling) grace of God, is completely unable to choose by themselves to follow God, refrain from evil, or accept the gift of salvation as it is offered.
In Western Christian theology, grace is created by God who gives it as help to one because God desires one to have it, not necessarily because of anything one has done to earn it. It is understood by Western Christians to be a spontaneous gift from God to people – "generous, free and totally unexpected and undeserved" – that takes the form of divine favor, love, clemency, and a share in the divine life of God. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, grace is the uncreated Energies of God. Among Eastern Christians generally, grace is considered to be the partaking of the Divine Nature described in 2 Peter 1:4 and grace is the working of God himself, not a created substance of any kind that can be treated like a commodity.
The five solae of the Protestant Reformation are a foundational set of Christian theological principles held by theologians and clergy to be central to the doctrines of justification and salvation as taught by the Calvinism and Lutheranism branches of Protestantism, as well as in some sects of Pentecostalism. Each sola represents a key belief in these Protestant traditions in contradistinction to the theological doctrine of the Catholic Church, although they were not assembled as a theological unit until the 20th century. The Reformers are known to have only clearly stated two of the five solae. Even today there are differences as to what constitutes the solae and how many there are, not to mention how to interpret them to reflect the Reformers' beliefs.
In Christianity, salvation is the "saving [of] human beings from sin and its consequences, which include death and separation from God" by Christ's death and resurrection, and the justification following this salvation.
In Christian theology, synergism is the belief that salvation involves some form of cooperation between divine grace and human freedom. Synergism is upheld by the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Churches, Anabaptist Churches and Methodist Churches. It is an integral part of Arminian theology common in the General Baptist and Methodist traditions.
Nathaniel William Taylor was an influential Protestant Theologian of the early 19th century, whose major contribution to the Christian faith, known as the New Haven theology or Taylorism, was to line up historical Calvinism with the religious revivalism of the time. A graduate of Yale College, he returned to found the school's first independent division, the Theological Department, an institution which later became the Yale Divinity School.
Unconditional election is a Calvinist doctrine relating to predestination that describes the actions and motives of God prior to his creation of the world, when he predestined some people to receive salvation, the elect, and the rest he left to continue in their sins and receive the just punishment, eternal damnation, for their transgressions of God's law as outlined in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. God made these choices according to his own purposes apart from any conditions or qualities related to those persons.
Limited atonement is a doctrine accepted in some Christian theological traditions. It is particularly associated with the Reformed tradition and is one of the five points of Calvinism. The doctrine states that though the death of Jesus Christ is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world, it was the intention of God the Father that the atonement of Christ's death would work itself out in only the elect, thereby leading them without fail to salvation. According to Limited Atonement, Christ died for the sins of the elect alone, and no atonement was provided for the reprobate. This is in contrast to a belief that God's prevenient grace enables all to respond to the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ Acts 2:21 so that it is each person's decision and response to God's grace that determines whether Christ's atonement will be effective to that individual. A modified form of the doctrine also exists in Molinism.
Irresistible grace is a doctrine in Christian theology particularly associated with Calvinism, which teaches that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save and, in God's timing, overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to faith in Christ. It is to be distinguished from prevenient grace, particularly associated with Arminianism, which teaches that the offer of salvation through grace does not act irresistibly in a purely cause-effect, deterministic method, but rather in an influence-and-response fashion that can be both freely accepted and freely denied.
Prevenient grace is a Christian theological concept that refers to the grace of God in a person's life which precedes and prepares to conversion. The concept was first developed by Augustine of Hippo, was affirmed by the Second Council of Orange (529) and has become part of Catholic theology. It is also present in Reformed theology, through the form of an effectual calling leading some individuals irresistibly to salvation. It is also in Arminian theology, according to which it is dispensed universally in order to enable people to respond to the offer of salvation, though it does not ensure personal acceptance.
Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is a theological movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper. James Bratt has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism: The Seceders, split into the Reformed Church "West" and the Confessionalists; the neo-Calvinists; and the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists. The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the neo-Calvinists usually supralapsarian.
Monergism is the view within Christian theology which holds that God works through the Holy Spirit to bring about the salvation of an individual through spiritual regeneration, regardless of the individual's cooperation. It is most often associated with Lutheranism, as well as with the Reformed tradition and its doctrine of irresistible grace, and particularly with historical doctrinal differences between Calvinism and Arminianism. This position supposedly contrasts with what is pejoratively called Arminian synergism, the belief that God and individuals cooperate to bring individuals salvation.
The history of the Calvinist–Arminian debate begins in early 17th century in the Netherlands with a Christian theological dispute between the followers of John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius, and continues today among some Protestants, particularly evangelicals. The debate centers around soteriology, or the study of salvation, and includes disputes about total depravity, predestination, and atonement. While the debate was given its Calvinist–Arminian form in the 17th century, issues central to the debate have been discussed in Christianity in some form since Augustine of Hippo's disputes with the Pelagians in the 5th century.
Roger Eugene Olson is an American Baptist theologian and Professor of Christian Theology of Ethics at the Baylor University.
Regeneration, while sometimes perceived to be a step in the Ordo salutis, is generally understood in Christian theology to be the objective work of God in a believer's life. Spiritually, it means that God brings a person to new life from a previous state of separation from God and subjection to the decay of death. Thus, in Lutheran and Roman Catholic theology, it generally means that which takes place during baptism. In Calvinism and Arminian theology, baptism is recognized as an outward sign of an inward reality which is to follow regeneration as a sign of obedience to the New Testament; as such, the Methodist Churches teach that regeneration occurs during the new birth.
Sola gratia, meaning by grace alone, is one of the five solae and consists in the belief that salvation comes by divine grace or "unmerited favor" only, not as something earned or deserved by the sinner. It is a Christian theological doctrine held by some Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of Protestantism, propounded to summarise the Protestant Reformers' basic soteriology during the Reformation.
Sovereignty of God in Christianity can be defined primarily as the right of God to exercise his ruling power over his creation, and secondarily, but not necessarily, as the exercise of this right. The way God exercises his ruling power is subject to divergences notably related to the concept of God's self-imposed limitations. The relationship between free will and the sovereignty of God has been relevant notably in the Calvinist-Arminian debate and in the philosophical theodicy.
References
- ↑ Storms, Sam. "The Goodness of God and Common Grace". The Gospel Coalition .
- ↑ Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 4th ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), pages 434–435.