The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Hank Hanegraff on calvinism

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]We might keep in mind that every time an Arminian prays for another person he is acting like a Calvinist.</font><hr></blockquote><p> You have provided but yet another occasion to post my overworn quotes from Kuyper and Spurgeon which I first introduced here, January 7, 1997! [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/evilgrin.gif" alt="evilgrin" title="evilgrin[/img]<blockquote>1) “Religion on earth finds its highest expression in the act of prayer. But Calvinism in the Christian Church is simply that tendency which makes a man assume the same attitude toward God in his profession and life which he exhibits in prayer. There is no Christian, be he Lutheran or Baptist, Methodist or Greek, whose prayer is not thoroughly Calvinistic; no child of God, to whatever Church organization he may belong, but in his prayer he gives glory to God above and renders thanks to his Father in heaven for all the grace working in him, and acknowledges that the eternal love of God alone has, in the face of his resistance, drawn him out of darkness into light. On his knees before God everyone that has been saved will recognize the sole efficiency of the Holy Spirit in every good work performed, and will acknowledge that without the atoning grace of Him who is rich in mercies, he would not exist for a moment, but would sink away in guilt and sin. In a word, whoever truly prays ascribes nothing to his own will or power except the sin that condemns him before God, and knows of nothing that could endure the judgment of God except it be wrought in him by divine love. But whilst all other tendencies in the Church preserve this attitude as long as the prayer lasts, to lose themselves in radically different conceptions as soon as the Amen has been pronounced, the Calvinist adheres to the truth of his prayer, in his confession, in his theology, in his life, and the Amen that has closed his petition re-echoes in the depth of his consciousness and throughout the whole of his existence.” - by Dr. Abraham Kuyper, 1891<br><br>2) “You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer — for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free will: there is no room for it. Fancy him praying, ‘Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved. Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not — that is the difference between me and them.’ . . . Do I hear one Christian man saying, ‘I sought Jesus before he sought me; I went to the Spirit, and the Spirit did not come to me?’ No, beloved; we are obliged, each one of us, to put our hands to our hearts, and say:<br><br><center>‘Grace taught my soul to pray,<br>And made my eyes o’erflow;<br>‘Twas grace that kept me to this day,<br>And will not let me go.”</center><br><br>by Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, on December 2, 1855</blockquote>In His Grace,<br>

Howard,

Let me add one more pertinent quote to Pilgrim's and RonD's comments, from J.I. Packer's Introductory Essay to John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ:

... Calvinism in itself is essentially [color:blue]expository, pastoral and constructive. It can define its position in terms of Scripture without any reference to Arminianism, and it does not need to be forever fighting real or imaginary Arminians in order to keep itself alive...

Calvinism is the natural theology written on the heart of the new man in Christ, whereas Arminianism is an intellectual sin of infirmity, natural only in the sense in which all such sins are natural, even to the regenerate. Calvinistic thinking is the Christian being himself on the intellectual level; Arminian thinking is the Christian failing to be himself through the weakness of the flesh. Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions from attending to what Scripture actually says...So that really it is most misleading to call this soteriology 'Calvinism' at all, for it is not a peculiarity of John Calvin and the divines of Dort, but a part of the revealed truth of God and the catholic Christian faith. 'Calvinism' is one of the 'odious names' by which down the centuries prejudice has been raised against it. But the thing itself is just the biblical gospel.

It may or may not be technically true that you were not a Christian while believing an Arminian theology, you are best able to vouch for your own conversion. While the old-fashioned antidote for experience based theology was and remains sola scriptura, it cannot be wrong to deny the existence of our personal experiences, or their validity to us. They are milestones on our journey through life. But we should be careful not to generalize from them.<br><br>My own experience is when I came to Christ as a child, I went to my parents' church, which happened to Arminian. As I look back on it, I would say that God simply used the most readily available church as a tool to begin to grow my faith in him. There were few Calvinist churches in my community, and they were not accessible to me at that time.<br><br>But can there be converted elect in Arminian churches? Where else could they go? There are too many, don't you think, for the few Calvinist and Reformed churches in existence? [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/dizzy.gif" alt="dizzy" title="dizzy[/img] For the time being, I suppose they must content themselves with Arminianism whether they know they believe it or not. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink[/img]

I believe that as an arminian I was not a christian. When I realised what arminianism was as I embraced the doctrines of Grace , the christ I had formerly believed upon - dissappeared from view only to be replaced by The Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture. This former 'christ' was no christ at all ! It was all in my imagination as i gave 'him' intellectual consent to be ' my savior'.<br><br>I belived in a false gospel (no gospel), and a false christ (no christ). In short, I believed WHAT I WANTED TO BELIEVE , not what I believe today.<br><br>When an arminian talks of God he is not talking about the same God of The Holy Bible. This is my opinion- no dogma. I discussed this yesterday with a friend - a former arminian , who disagrees with me so I know many here will too.<br><br>Suffice to say , there are many false gospels and arminianism is the root of them all.<br><br>howard<br>'

I agree with much of what you are saying, that the Christ of the gospels is so much more clearly discerned through Calvinism than Arminianism, as to almost seem to be a different Christ. But I don't think that is the actual case, rather Calvinism, or perhaps more accurate scriptural theology, brings the true Christ, seen fuzzily with Arminian glasses, into sharp focus. But again, that was my personal experience. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/grin.gif" alt="grin" title="grin[/img]<br><br>Following the line of logic you are developing would lead one, I think, to come down on the side of those who would say that Arminianism is not merely error, but heresy. I think that could be an extreme position, but the point is arguable.<br><br>If the Arminian congregation you were part of could not accept, for instance, the Nicene Creed, then they were preaching a different Christ and were therefore teaching heresy. Otherwise, with most of the evangelical world, they would simply be heterodox, or teaching error, but not necessarily heresy. I think the Nicene Creed is a good benchmark of the historic, apostolic faith in Jesus Christ.<br><br>Yet "Arminian" baptisms in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are everywhere accepted, so far as I know, in all Calvinist and Reformed congregations, so that I think the clear consensus of opinion and practice of the orthodox church has been that Arminian theology is not heresy per se, but please correct me if I am wrong. <br><br>As far as your concluding statement, I would agree. When we turn from grace to self, it is the beginning of turning from the true gospel, so perhaps in that sense Arminianism could be said to be the root of all false gospels. <br><br>However, having said that, I have a couple of observations from a sermon I heard last week. There are many scriptures regarding election and predestination that are ignored by Arminians, just as there are many scriptures regarding personal responsibility that some in the Calvinist camp don't like to hear. Yet after conversion, we are free to choose rightly, as the scriptures tell us. But at the same time, it is all sovereign grace that we can even do that. There is in scripture it seems to me this tension between these two positions, and living with both of them as we Christians must keeps us humble and needy before the throne of grace.<br><br>You make some very good points. The Reformers were all "Calvinist," and yet today this theology is preserved in the small minority of congregations. It is sad that broadly speaking, on the subject of the will, evangelicals and charismatics by and large have returned to the position of the Roman church, erasing much of the Reformation. The sad result is that together with the Roman church, most evangelicals form an "Arminian" theological ocean, in which Calvinism, almost a hated name in some quarters (a friend prefers the accurate term "Paul's Gospel"), stands as a tiny but important island. <br><br>As the hymn says of the church, "by heresies distressed," <br><br>[color:blue] http://www.opc.org/books/TH/old/Blue270.html </font color=blue><br><br>in other words, individual believers, men and women, boys and girls, harmed by false teaching, and yet the church triumphs. <br><br>And as the scriptures say "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." The mission of Calvinism IMHO has in our time been to the whole church, through Christian thinkers, and writers, and the witness of orthodoxy, to raise the consciousness of the true Christ throughout the true church, and to bring repentance and healing of error, even heresy through the gospel of Jesus Christ. [applauds]

El_ajo,<br><br>Although I find Howard's position; Anyone professing Arminian theology is unsaved extreme and both biblically and practically untenable, as I have pointed out at least a couple of times in this thread with my reasons for disagreeing, your statement here:<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]so that I think the clear consensus of opinion and practice of the orthodox church has been that Arminian theology is not heresy per se, but please correct me if I am wrong.</font><hr></blockquote><p> also needs correction, which you pleasantly stand ready for correction. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/bravo.gif" alt="bravo" title="bravo[/img]<br><br>The Synod of the Canons of Dordtrect (1618-1619) voted unanimously against the followers of Jacobus Arminius and their "Arminian" theology and deemed it heresy. All those who came and deliberated over the Remonstrance (1610) saw it as a return to Rome and as teaching synergism; i.e., faith+works=salvation, among other serious heretical errors. In fact, Arminianism is a denial of Sola Gratia itself. From before that Synodical decision, (cf. The Council of Orange of 529 A.D.) until recently, when post-modernism thinking and Liberalism infected the Church, Arminianism has always been judged as heresy.<br><br>Any Reformed church, worthy of the name and heritage, would never blindly accept into membership anyone without requiring an inquiry into the background and profession of faith of an individual. The probability of one professing Arminianism and owning salvation is "slim" although surely possible. Thus great care was taken, historically in the churches, to discern the prospective member's spiritual state before granting that membership into the body of Christ. Although many Calvinistic churches have made similar errors in this regard when it comes to "covenant children", granting them "easy membership" with the same tragic results; i.e., the church being populated with unbelievers. The case with Arminians is no less worthy of attention and care.<br><br>In His Grace,

Dear Howard:<br><br>I tend to agree with you. I believe that it is possible to hold to Armenian views in the mind, for a while, following true conversion, as I did, particularly if that is what one has been taught and never exposed to the true Gospel, which is only found summarized in the doctrines of grace. <br><br>However, I must say that at the same time as I held to these Arminian views, at least tenuously in my mind, the Lord, by His Spirit, had caused me to seriously doubt my salvation through a decision for Christ and a prayer of acceptance and so on and so on. He taught me that I was a sinner, and that there was an eternity facing me of uncertain nature and that I needed a saviour and that I wanted Him to assure me of it, not any man or any doctrinal camp or any church or preacher any thing, or any one, else. When I read several years later that this is exactly how Bunyan's pastor advised all of his flock it rang as pure truth in my ears.<br><br>I was so sick of my own error and the errors I had been taught that I wanted to hear it from the lips of the Saviour, in my ear of faith, and I contend, that though I knew it not at the time, it was His Spirit and His Spirit only that created my desire for His testimony in my soul, and Who wouldn't let me rest with anything short of it. He brought many scriptures with power that testified to me of the correctness of this position, in spite of the myriad teachings to the contrary in the religious community by the most educated and seemingly pious of men. <br><br>Eventually He revealed Himself with power to my soul and at the same time, placed a specific inner conviction that this work and all true work was a sovereign work of Him. This was made crystal clear to me, and though I didn't know it at the time, from that point on I was a believer in the doctrines of grace. He did this long before I heard the doctrines of grace taught. But, when I did hear them I recognized them instantly to be the pure truth of God and the encapsulation of key scripture and my own experience of same.<br><br>He also subsequently brought emminant men who testified extensively to these same things, men like Calvin, Edwards, Owen, Philpot, Huntington, and Bunyan. <br><br>I am aware of the nuances and varied paths that the Lord leads His elect children down and that one has to be careful in how one evaluates individual experience, but I believe that it is highly unusual if not impossible for one to accept a Christ that he hasn't been humbled enough to see his true desperate need for, and to then have been shown the divine beauty of, two aspects of scriptural experience I trace all over the Old and New Testament. <br><br>I believe also, contrary to the teachings of men like John Wesley, that part of the evidence of the new birth is a growing awarness of the pervasive, awful, devastating nature of sin and all of it's consequences, applied personally to ones life. I have heard it said that Whitefield believed that Wesley was a believer and while I greatly respect and admire Whitefield, I believe his theological expertise was in evangelism, not sanctification. As such, how Wesley could have persisted in his error, and not have been shown it, if only only his death bed, is beyond me. Perhaps he was shown this at some point, I have not read of his doing so however. We are also taught that, with respect to false teachers, "Ye shall know them by their fruits" and when I look at the fruit of Wesleys work in all of it's error and false teaching, I have to wonder how such a bastion of Arminian error could be called a good fruit.<br><br>These are my convictions in this regard and I guess I would have to summarize it like this. Since we are dealing with the only really important matter in time or eternity, is it not foolish to err on the side of lack of assurance of faith rather than on the side an "excess" of assurance, if indeed there can be any such thing. In other words, this isn't a game of horse shoes and close doesn't count, and since the scriptures are repleat with passages that deal with warnings about presumption and false teachers on the one hand, and "full assurance of understanding", the "witness Himself beareth witness with our spirit", "joy uspeakable and full of glory" and to "know Him and the power of His resurrection" on the other hand, I fail to see the merit in encouraging any thing less than a personal spiritual knowledge of same, divinely revealed to the soul. <br><br>Just my opinion,<br><br>Gerry

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Suffice to say , there are many false gospels and arminianism is the root of them all.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Oh come on now Mark there were Ebionites, Docetists, Arians, Appollinarians, Nestorians, and Eutychians way before Pelagious and his grandchild Jacob Arminius. Not to mention Unitarianism, Sabellianism, Tritheism. Need I go on? All of these presented a false gospel and a false Christ. Lets not give arminianism the title MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. after all that belongs to the papist church.<br><br>TTFN

People here need to listen to Hank. He knows what he is talking about.<br><br>God does not "stack the deck".

Did you actually listen to rebutall? Hank does not know what he is talking about when it comes to the doctrines of Grace, and specifically God's sovereignty. <br><br><br>In christ,<br>Carlos

He does not believe from your perspective these things, because he rebukes them as you portray them in the name of the Lord as I do.<br><br>"God does not stack the deck" Amen. I love Him for that.<br><br><br>

<blockquote>God does not stack the deck</blockquote><br><br>You keep quoting that, and we keep quoting Scripture. I think we all know who is on the winning side...

Anyone can quote scripture just as anyone can misuse scripture.<br><br>As Hank said, "God does not stack the deck". <br>God is holy and stacking the deck would make him deceitful<br><br>

Once again. NO Scripture references. YOu say we misuse scriptures, but yet have not offered any kind of <span style="background-color:yellow;">exegesis</span> or argumentation from the text to prove us wrong. [img]http://www.the-highway.com/w3timages/icons/shrug.gif" alt="shrug" title="shrug[/img]. Please see my lastest post.<br>Quoting Hank does not help u. James white refuted him quite clearly, as we are doing to you now.<br><br><br>in Christ,<br>Carlos

Pilgrim,<br><br>This is an important question, I appreciate your clarification. My question is, how should the Canons of Dordt be interpreted in light of the evangelical church scene as a whole? Can a church teach some heresy, but not be filled with heretics? Isn't heresy, well, such a significant departure from the faith as to make the religious system something other than Christianity, such as modern liberalism? Or is there a difference between heresy and damnable heresy?<br><br>I cannot bring myself to consider someone who accepts an important creed such as the Nicene to be other than my brother or sister in the faith, whatever their theological warts, and that means some who would place themselves by belief or action in the Arminian camp. I know I am not alone among the Reformed in this regard, but I am also open to the idea that this may in itself represent a cultural compromise. <br><br>Another question, if in fact the Arminian theology of most of the church is damnable heresy, why should a baptism in such a circumstance be accepted even upon examination of the profession of faith?<br><br>I hate Arminianism, it is a real perversion of scripture, a truly wicked system with a twisted view of Christ, as Howard has stated. But are we to say that the bulk of evangelical churches today have placed themselves so far from the trunk of Christian orthodoxy that we ought to consider them to be cut off?