The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-19, titled "Bible Questions and Answers."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2000 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.

Question

Can you talk a little bit about Arminian theology? Is it biblical? And, if a church embraces that theology, are they saved? [Can somebody who holds an Arminian view be a Christian?”]

Answer

Yes, if you’re talking about Arminian theology. We always want to make the distinction between Armenians and Arminians. Armenians [are] a people; Arminian is a theology from Arminius. Let me just say this. This debate comes up all the time, and I like to answer the thing by saying I really don’t land, necessarily, with labels very comfortably. You know, you can be called a Calvinist or a Hyper-Calvinist or a Four-point Calvinist or…I’ve been called a Four-and-a-half-point Calvinist… One guy called me a One-point Calvinist--I don’t know how he came up with that. And people can be labeled Arminian.

I understand what they mean by that, but I, personally, try to resist those labels because those labels are loaded with different content for different people. And people love to slap a label on you and then everybody defines that label in a different way. So, I really run from those labels.

At the same time, to put it simply, the debate of Calvinism and Arminianism falls along five simple lines that we all know about called T.U.L.I.P.: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and the Perseverance of the saints--T.U.L.I.P.

John Calvin rightly interpreted the Bible to teach that man is totally depraved. What that means, is that, not every human being is as sinful as he could be or she could be, but that every human being is sinful to the point that they’re incapable of altering their condition. That is to say, total depravity means you can’t do anything to save yourself. You can’t even make a right choice. You can’t awaken your spiritual deadness. You can’t give life where there is death. You can’t come to a right conclusion on your own. Total depravity means that everyone, is by virtue of their own will and their own power and their own choices, incapable of redemption. That’s total depravity.

Arminius would say--Arminian theology, Palagian theology, as it’s also called--would say “man is capable.” That while man is, in the general sense, a sinner, he has capacities within himself to choose to be saved. That is the debate. I don’t think that’s biblical. I think we are dead in trespasses and sin, and dead people don’t make choices. Dead people can’t make themselves alive. So, I think there is a clear distinction there.

In the case of unconditional election, you have the view in the Scripture that the people who are saved are saved because they were chosen by God apart from any merit of their own, apart from any condition. Whereas, typically, the person who holds Arminian theology would say that we are saved by acts of our own will. We have still the power to believe on our own, and therefore, when we choose to believe, we become elect. It isn’t something that God determined in eternity past; it’s something that occurs sort of ‘de facto’ or ‘ipso facto,’--“after the fact.”

And then you have limited atonement; in the typical reformed view, means that the atonement, in its actual work, the actual efficacy of the atonement, was only for the elect. That is, it’s limited to those who believe and were chosen by God, whereas the Arminian side of it would say that everybody’s sins have been paid for, all across the world, whether people believe or not. So that, in the end, Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of people who don’t believe. That’s a problem because if your sins are paid for already by Jesus and you go to hell, then that’s double jeopardy.

And then you have irresistible grace, which is the idea that when the spirit of God works on the heart of a sinner, the sinner can’t resist. Arminian theology would say the sinner can resist.

And perseverance of the saints, the last in the five points, is the idea that if you’re saved, you’re going to persevere to glory. Arminian theology says you might not--you could lose your salvation along the way.

So, they are diametrically opposed. The question comes, “Can somebody who holds an Arminian view be a Christian?” And I would hate to say they couldn’t be. I really believe that it is possible to be Arminian and to be a Christian…to misunderstand your human capability, to misunderstand the election, to misunderstand the extent of the atonement, even to misunderstand the irresistible nature of God’s saving grace, and even to think you could lose your salvation. But, at the same time--while being confused or ignorant of those things--to know that you’re a sinner and know that the only way of salvation is through Jesus Christ. I guess you could say that someone could be an Arminian and push those points far enough, where they could jeopardize my confidence that they really are a Christian. You could push the point of not being totally depraved far enough where you’re actually being saved by your own works, by your own belief, by your own ingenuity, by your own self-induced faith. And you could get to the point where you could really wonder whether someone understands that it’s all a work of God.

But, I think it would be going too far to say someone who holds an Arminian view, or anyone who holds an Arminian view, is, by virtue of that view, not a Christian. I think there are people who just don’t understand rightly those things, but who know they’re sinners and who cry out in their sin for the Lord to save them. They don’t understand how what they’re doing works together with the great purposes and power of God, and consequently can’t give God fully the glory He deserves for all of that, but they could be genuinely saved, by hoping in Christ and Christ alone.

Question (continued)

Even if they are teachers of churches who teach that? Why wouldn’t they understand if they’re so scholarly?

Answer (continued)

Well, they don’t understand--there are a number of reasons why people get it wrong. One is they are in a tradition where people have had it wrong for a long time. And so, that’s the way they grew up, that’s the tradition they’re in, and that’s what they understand. In other words, there is a predigested, passed-down system. Let me tell you, Arminian people can make an argument. They can make the case; they’ve been making the case for centuries for their viewpoint.

I remember one of the exercises that I had to do when I was a seminary student, in fact, I did it on my own; I don’t think it was an assignment, but I did it--it was to read Shank’s book on Life in the Son, which is I think the best, concise argument for the Arminian position. And it is a very carefully thought out, systematic argument. I also studied the theology of Arminians--Wiley and Miley--systematic theologies written by these men. They can systematize their viewpoint and once that viewpoint is systematized at some point in history and passed down and passed down and refined and refined and refined, they have a scholastic system. I mean, essentially, Roman Catholicism is Arminian! It’s a pretty sophisticated system that can rise to pretty high levels of scholasticism.

So, it isn’t that they’re not scholars; it’s that they tend to be in a mold or in a rut (I guess you could say) that traditionally gets passed down.

I also think a second reason why people get it wrong--and this is true for anything--is because they don’t do the really hard work of studying the Word of God, and you have to drop your presuppositions at some point.

One of the benefits that I had, is I grew up in an environment where my dad was the preacher and it was basically a Baptist kind of environment. And what I learned growing up was sort of a middle ground. In my upbringing, we didn’t like the Calvinists and we didn’t like the Arminians; we sort of had that Baptist middle ground. That’s probably what a lot of you…you grew in the same kind of environment. You didn’t talk about predestination or election--that was kind of a frightening thing and that was for dead Presbyterians, and there were only about 30 of them in the whole city of Los Angeles--at the time, and they were over in a room somewhere contemplating their navel and reading John Calvin. You know, it was very introspective and they were thrilled with their theology, but they were a small little group and we weren’t into that.

I went away to college and essentially I went to two colleges, the roots of which were both Methodist. So, they were steeped in Arminian theology. One was sort of a Revivalist environment, and the other was a more traditional Wesleyan environment, where we read Wiley and Miley and all of that, and we had to imbibe all of this Arminian theology. I got out of that; I went to a seminary that had Presbyterian influences. So, I went from the Arminian kind of side to the Reformed side, and there I was in the middle of this mix and I just decided I’d go to the Bible and find out what the Bible said. I think, in a sense, all of that experience sort of canceled each other out, which was good for me, and I went back to the Word of God and in the Word of God, without all the presuppositions cast in stone, I was able to let the Bible speak. Through the years, the Bible I believe speaks very clearly about what the truth is.

But, I think if people could divest themselves of their presuppositions and if they could be willing to eat a little humble pie and say, “It’s possible that I might be wrong,” and take another hard look at the Word of God, they would come to the right answers. It’s a very simple point to make, and it is this: if two people take two opposing views of something, they cannot both be right. Somebody is wrong. And it’s not us, right? Well, I mean, I don’t say that in a proud way. I just believe that we are where we are because we believe this is true.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
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