Calvin Vs Arminius

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Phillip Plager

Period 4

I have attended Spirit of Hope United Methodist Church for all of my life. One day following communion I noticed a trend. We always used Welch's grape juice for our communion. Why was that? Was that just always the cheapest juice? I asked my pastor, I needed answers. It turned out Welch's was a Methodist company, and the juice itself was made for a non-alcoholic Methodist communion. For some reason I thought that this was so interesting. I then thought to myself "I am sure that our long tradition is ripe with interesting facts. Maybe I should check out this Wesley guy."

So I started my journey and off to the Methodist library I went. I read a summation of the history of the Methodist church. It was moderately interesting, but not what I was looking for. I decided instead of reading biographical information on Wesley I wanted to hear what he had to say. He was an avid writer and his sermons and magazines are very well documented. This is where another trend was discovered. The name Arminius kept on surfacing. The title of one piece of literature was named "How to make good Armenians". Later Wesley created the "Arminian magazine", a periodical devoted to the concepts of Arminius. Interestingly enough, John Wesley never actually quoted Arminius once in any of the issues that bare his own name. So in thinking, "As a Methodist I should to be a good Arminian" I came to the conclusion that I needed to find out who Jacobus Arminius was.

In the paradigm of Newtonian physics, Christianity in America today can be separated into two main theological camps. These camps originated from two great scholars John Calvin and Jacobus (James) Arminius. The two main ideological groups that spawned from these men were Calvinism and Arminianism respectively. Other major theories exist such as the post-modern open theorists, or the new quantum physic philosophy, but do not nearly have the following as Arminians and Calvinists. I decided to refine my search. I was going to find the roots of these camps and then assess where their core ideology played into both my church and my spiritual life.

John Calvin was born in 1509 a French Catholic. He later converted to Presbyterian and served as the great protestant systemizer. He wrote volumes in the "Institute for Christian religion" which laid out a protestant foundation. He spoke often of predestination and preservation of salvation. He was known for using keywords such as "justification and sanctification". Serving as a church politician, Calvin developed the Presbyterian Church into a democratic style government.

Arminius was born at Oudewater, Utrecht, on October 10, 1560. Armininus studied at the University of Leiden and obtained his doctorate. He became a pastor preaching reformation. Since it was a reformed pastor's custom to preach through a book of the bible, Arminius began with Romans. When he was up to chapter 7 controversy erupted. He maintained that the "wretched man" spoken of there was the pre-Christian person, not the regenerate believer. His theological enemies pronounced him heterodox. They also accused him of "Pelagianism", the heretical notion that the Fall has affected humankind so slightly that we can will ourselves, unaided, into fellowship with God. Arminius responded by writing of 5 major points were his theology differed from Calvin. The Calvinist rebuttal was the 5 points of Calvinism. Today the 5 points are characterized by the acronym T.U.L.I.P. These 5 concepts are where we can establish our protestant roots.

So I went on this "journey" to find out some interesting quarks about the Methodist church. I have learned quite a bit by this point, but I am just not satisfied. So far Phil's Methodist quest, abridged version, goes follows: Wesley wanted me to be like Arminius, and Arminius didn't want me to be like Calvin, and Calvin didn't want me to be catholic. I knew Wesley didn't want me to be Catholic. I was confident I had a theological mess. It was time to turn to T.U.L.I.P.

Total depravity is the first pedal in the wedge issues of T.U.L.I.P. Arimius argued that humans are not spiritually helpless. That it is through a human's free will, inspired through God, which they turn to God. Faith is essentially a gift that sinners give to God. *Man gives a contribution towards his salvation. This theory put a lot of accountability on man. This would give you a strong reason to evangelize. In this ideology Jesus died for all of humankind, with all humans having the potential to reach the Kingdom of God. Calvin's objection to this theory was that it takes away from God's sovereignty. He believed that humans were inherently corrupt, and they did not have free choice to pull themselves from their sin. Only God *himself could pull a sinner to Christ. This thought makes Salvation a gift that God gives to the sinner, not visa versa. It has more emphasis on the strength and power of God. It makes humans, Gods creation, more pathetic under the light of God.

Unconditional Election is the concept of those who are chosen for salvation. Arminius believed that before the creation of the world God chose who would be elected into salvation based upon their potential and the dictions they would make with their free will. The "election" was conditional. Calvin saw election as unconditional. This election was a process that God selected humans as a part of his great plan. God did not select individuals into salvation based upon foreseen faith, obedience, or repentance. This is a difficult concept to grasp. The concept of election was best illustrated to me through an analogy by Doug wiemmerscerch, a friend and part time theologian. He said that election was similar to a game of billiards. Under Calvin's theory, before the shot was taken God would know absolutely were the balls would fall. In Arminius' theory prior to the shot God would understand all of the potential combinations that would result from the shot about to be taken. This is one point where modern day philosophy would contradict Arminius. If God new the possible combinations for the shot, there is no way that *he could not have a role in the outcome in the shot. Calvin is scripturally supported on this point.

"This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call, What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By