Avoiding Evil

I’ve been reading the book, The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray. I especially like the third chapter which deals with Spurgeon’s thoughts on Arminianism. There were two theological views that Spurgeon stood against in his day, one was Arminianism and the other was Hyper Calvinism. I see a lot of arguments for or against Calvinism, but I see very little that refutes the actual teaching of Arminianism. So, based on Spurgeon’s teaching, here is a case against Arminianism:

There are a lot of different reactions when it comes to dealing with Calvinism and Arminianism. Sadly enough I had never heard of such things until I started my degree in religion. The teachings of the church left me wholly unprepared, which sent me into a whirlwind of turmoil as I sought to deal with these issues. Predestination and election are two things that pastors simply do not want to deal with, so for years the issue is skirted around and pushed off, no matter how Biblical it may be. This goes for most of the things found in Scripture that make us uncomfortable. If it makes us uncomfortable, then by all means let’s hide it, weaken it, rip it up, and toss it. Ok, I’ll admit, I am a little bitter about this issue and I have some resentment towards the church in general for it’s seemingly lack in ability to teach its members the Bible. Nonetheless, I am left with the question, does the argument between the Calvinists and Arminians really matter enough to be essential in the teaching of the church? Should we grapple with these difficult doctrines or simply allow people to believe what they want about them? Is there an answer one way or another about these issues, or is the Bible simply ambiguous? At one point in my life I would have said no, these are not essential teachings. I was wrong.

I considered myself a Cal-minian believing halfway between an Arminian position and a Calvinist position. I figured that these were issues that we would never know the answer to and therefore it wasn’t up to us to deal with it, and I thought that maybe it was not something altogether important to the church, because I believed that people holding both positions could be saved, worship God, and share the gospel with the lost. However, my opinion has changed and now I believe that a Christian cannot be a cal-minian, because the two positions completely contradict each other. I don’t want to get caught up in semantics, so let me explain that when I mention Calvinism or Arminianism I am not talking about the people behind the names, but I am talking about the theology behind them. Within these names lies the essentials for the doctrine of salvation, election and predestination, this is what I am really discussing in this post. Is the doctrine of salvation important to the church? Yes! That is why I now believe that it is not only necessary, but essential to deal with these issues and look closely at the two positions.

My concern is that we talk far to much about Calvinism, both in support of and in rejecting it that we miss what Arminianism really is. If you do not believe in the theology of Calvin, then what is it that you really believe? That is what I am seeking to look at the next few days.

So that this one post does not become too long to read in one day, I am breaking it up into several posts. For the next several days I am going to deal with a different thought from Spurgeon about Arminianism and I will share my own opinion about the issue. I will begin the first of this series of posts tomorrow. Stay tuned!