The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum The Sabbath

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[color:"blue"]The word "most" implies >50%. The major dispensational seminaries are 4 pointers .

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Are we talking about dispensationalists or dispensational seminaries?

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[color:"blue"]Having read about the Canons of Dordt, I would define an Arminian as one who follows the teachings of Arminius. A four point Calvinist would NOT be an Arminian. If you are going to limit calling a Calvinist as to one who holds all five points, then I can limit the definition of an Arminian. :)

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Giving up any of the five points destroys the coherence of the system. As I showed already, one who rejects limited atonement must hold either to universalism or to (Arminian) free-will. If to the former, he maintains consistency but rejects the historic and biblical faith. If to the latter, he must by logical constraint deny total depravity, unconditional election, and irresistible grace.

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[color:"blue"]Whenever people on this board talk about Covenantalists, they talk about Covenantal scholars.

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I haven't seen enough talk of Covenantalists to verify that claim. But I can say that when someone is referred to as a "Calvinist," it doesn't matter whether they are scholars: the term indicates that they adhere to the Five Points. I call myself a Calvinist though I am neither scholar nor seminarian.

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[color:"blue"]Of course not, because when, at this site, we talk about Reformed people, we are really talking about the scholars and the seminaries, aren't we?!

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No. I daresay most of the people who post here are Reformed, and surely not all of them are scholars or seminarians. When we speak of Reformed scholars, writers, theologians, etc., we speak of scholars, writers, and theologians as groups within the Reformed tradition, not definitive of the Reformed tradition. That there are a lot of unreformed individuals attending ostensibly Reformed churches has no bearing. In the same way, when I refer to dispensationalists, I am referring to people who hold to a particular ecclesiology, i.e., that the nation of Israel and the Christian Church are discontinuous entities for whom God has separate plans in salvific history. Most people and churches who hold to this notion, though not all, have basically an Arminian theology.

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[color:"blue"]I bring this up, because I presume that would be your argument, that most Dispensationalists you know are Arminian.

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Most I know and most within American evangelicalism are, in fact, Arminian.

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[color:"blue"]But the scholars and seminaries, in general, aren't....unless we redefine Arminianism as anything but 5 point Calvinism.

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I gave a logical explanation before as to why anything but five-point Calvinism essentially ends up either universalist or Arminian. You have yet to address that.