The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Are you Really Lucky or Really Smart?

Just a thought, but it seems to me that with the traditional model of salvation, one must either be really smart or really lucky to be saved. Under the Arminianist view, you must be smart enough to choose Christ while under the Calvinist view, you must be lucky enough to have Christ choose you. Either way, both of these views would seem to allow some room for a certain amount of boasting regarding one’s salvation which is contrary to Eph 2:8-9.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast*.” (Eph 2:8-9 – NASB)

*The ‘it’ in this passage does not refer to faith or grace but to salvation.
(See Robertson, A.T. “Commentary on Ephesians 2:8”. “Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament”, 1960.)

I’m reminded of what C.S. Lewis (if I recall correctly) said, something along the lines that from a systematic perspective he’s an Arminianist but from an experiential perspective he’s a Calvinist. He realized that his personal salvation had nothing to do with him “choosing” but with the fact that God chose him and revealed His love to him; but from a theological perspective he sees people having a choice and that God loves all.

You are correct, especially about Arminianism ultimately giving the “saved” something to boast about personally. In Arminian theology ultimately the difference between the saved and unsaved is personal rightness, personally making the right choice, personally responding correctly to the opportunity of salvation, assuming one is given that opportunity.

Calvinism does not in any way shape or form leave room for boasting.
None.

Take it from me, a Calvinist.

Salvation from start to finish is a gift of grace :slight_smile:

Since you’re on this site, are you a Universalist too? I was just curious.

If grace is unmerited, if God is under no compulsion, if there’s nothing about us that deserves grace or attracts it, if we satisfy no criteria, then there is simply no reason for God to save anyone and salvation becomes a lottery. A God who saves and damns on the toss of a coin would be unworthy of our deepest love and praise.

In my view, God is in the business of saving the good wherever he finds it, and destroying the evil. Why would he do otherwise? What farmer would destroy a good tree and save a bad? By nature, God loves that which is loveable and hates the hateful. How could he do otherwise? There is no fellowship between light and darkness. No amount of unmerited grace could ever motivate God to love the darkness. Rather, grace impels him to destroy the darkness by filling it with light.

A human father may well sell all he has to bring healing to his child. This is grace. Our heavenly Father will not do less for his children than a good man, but a great deal more. He will heal the sickness of soul that blinds and binds each and every one of us. Whatever the cost, He will pay. He will sacrifice everything for us. He will shed his own blood. He will descend with us and for us into deepest darkness. He will find us, lift us in strong arms and carry us back into the light. This is the revelation of God I see in Christ.

I wouldn’t quite couch it in terms of being “smart enough to choose Christ”. No one chooses God, in and of themselves. Rather, we are all equally given resistible and sufficient prevenient grace to yield to God. Those who finally choose, for those reasons they think best, in effect, concede their own humility. That’s not something you have to be smart about. If we believe that God provides universal opportunity, and the sufficient grace necessary to yield to that opportunity, it allows no one the opportunity to boast or make excuses, and in that certain sense, it can certainly feel irresistible.

Though much emphasis in the scriptures is placed on hearing, I believe that it needn’t be a literal hearing, and furthermore that there are circumstances where God can accommodate this need without explicit human agency (if that makes sense). I obviously have no way of knowing who has and who hasn’t responded to the light they are given (I cannot weigh hearts like God can), though I suspect for every nominal Christian there are tenfold anonymous Christians.

Really? Are you not personally picked by God himself, however arbitrarily, for salvation and/or a special and superior caste, before the very foundation of the world? Is an election not superior to reprobation? Do you not think that allows for some boasting? Humans don’t only boast about their accomplishments, brother. They boast about their status. In my experience (which is only an experience) it is Calvinists who are more inclined to be aloof to the rest of the world, and indeed generally succumb to that aloofness.

The following is something relevant I had written elsewhere on this board, regarding this claim that Arminians can boast about their faith:

You might not couch it that way, but that is the basic mindset of free will theological thought. Personally, I believe Lucky enough or smart enough sums up both A AND C . I would add, at least with Calvinism, the Glory goes to God, however unrealistically the limited atonement portrays God as less than Merciful than human beings. Free will gives more glory those human will than the actual will of God> if this is acting on their conscious light available to individuals, it is human nature for to boast, leading to huge ego issues and much pride. I have this opinion based on my own attitudes as a ’ free will, moderate Calvinist. I believe the saying goes " Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick, except the person who has it "…

Wendy, I’m not the spokesperson for orthodox synergism, and I’m most probably wrong on several doctrinal nuances (and Arminians disagree amongst themselves on a few things also), but I think my representation of the (orthodox) free-will mindset is fair and generally accurate. Perhaps by free-will you are rightly including semi-pelagianism? In that sense, one could say that we have to be “smart enough” to choose salvation. But orthodox synergism? No, that would be an unfair assessment. I’m not sure if you read my whole post earlier, because I tried to show that the Arminian view of faith cannot intrinsically allow for boasting and thus, all glory must go to God for our salvation. Though I can boast in Yeshua, a faith that boasts in my own efforts would be self-negating. Orthodox Arminians have never, and could never, claim they save themselves or indeed, that they contribute to salvation. I have also tried to show that Calvinists, who deny that faith is the mechanism of salvation and instead believe fore-decree is the mechanism of salvation (faith merely being the first fruit of salvation), are if anything more susceptible to boasting, as faith in a Saviour isn’t the condition of salvation.

We are all Brothers:
In my post I didn’t say every Calvinist or Every Arminianist would boast, only that those traditional views open a door to allow for boasting. I held to a more or less Arminianist view that I had to receive God’s grace and I can tell you from my own personal experience, I was a bit on the prideful side. There’s a reason Paul had to warn against being boastful…he knew exactly what most believer’s would do. Now if you’re one of the one’s (“few”?) who is not boastful then I would say you don’t suffer from the same character flaw that I and most everyone else does.

HI dbbpatu

Your post is right on the money. Both Arminianism and Calvinism founder, in my opinion, over this salvation and boasting issue - among others, I might add! Arminianism puts salvation squarely in our own hands, meaning we *can *boast about having made the ‘right’ decision. There is simply no way round this, despite Andrew’s (WAAB) heroic attempts to prove otherwise. Calvinism is and always has been a total non-starter for me - at least, ‘traditional’ five point ‘some are predestined to damnation’ Calvinism. But on the boasting issue, if I thought God had picked me for salvation and not the guy sitting next to me, I couldn’t help but think there must be *something *about me that had led him to do that.

I would, though, question Mr Robertson’s exegesis of Ephesians. I had always thought - and I’m almost sure I’ve seen it demonstrated unequivocally, perhaps by Tom Talbott? - that the ‘it’ Paul talks of is not salvation per se, rather it is indeed the faith that is necessary for salvation. I believe the Greek makes this clear. Perhaps one of our resident Greek scholars could arbitrate?

Of course, in a way, the whole question is moot, because in the end the point is that we are saved by God’s grace, not by anything we do, or anything meritorious in ourselves.

For what it’s worth, my own belief is that nobody is truly ‘saved’ without faith in the person of Jesus Christ, and that this faith is indeed a gift which we must grasp - but crucially, God will see to it that we do indeed *freely *embrace that gift one day, either in this life or the life to come. That is why I’m a convinced dogmatic Arminian Universalist! :smiley:

All the best

Johnny

Hmmm… I guess I see Arminianism (and Christianity in general) as intrinsically disallowing of any boasting by anybody, especially in regard to our salvation. I think Paul is specifically warning us that we can’t be boastful of earning or deserving God’s favour by keeping Torah — the Gentiles at Ephesus were obviously having difficulties with their Jewish peers, who valued an obedience to Torah. The Jews of Rome also attributed God’s favour to their physical descendacy from Abraham (Romans 9:8). But Paul is not warning us about being boastful of our personal faith. If I have understand Paul rightly here, genuine faith necessarily precludes all boasting in ourselves. Our faith is boasting in Yeshua. So I think Paul would have thought that it was obvious that we can’t boast in ourselves. Not saying that I can’t and don’t boast of myself. But I can’t boast about saving (or adding to salvation) myself with faith. Hope that makes sense :slight_smile:

It sounds as though your contrast of Calvinism and Arminianism in your OP means there is another salvation model that precludes boasting. Universalism itself, as far as I understand, is an eschatological doctrine and not a new soteriological position. An “Arminiversalist”, according to his orthodox synergism, just believes everyone will ultimately concede their own humility. A “Calversalist” believes (if I understand the position correctly) that certain people are arbitrarily fore-decreed to belong to the Church class (the overcomers) and everyone else is piled into the other (the late-comers). Hopefully someone can explain Calversalism to me a bit better, as I’m sure I haven’t done it justice. Though of course, there are amongst the many other soteriologies (Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Lutheranism, Roman Catholicism, EOrthodox, Anabaptist and every other Tom, Dick and Harry’s favourite flavour), many more different ways in which God could reconcile all :smiley:

Peace and all that good stuff.

(Hi Johnny, good to “hear” from you). So although you criticize Arminians for placing salvation squarely in their own hands, you still affirm an Arminian soteriology and thus, that we freely (and ultimately) decide to accept this salvation anyway. Would you mind expounding that sophistry a bit further? :stuck_out_tongue:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it (τουτο) is the gift of God; so that no one can boast.”
—Ephesians 2:8
This is from an article from the Middletown Bible Church via the Society of Evangelical Arminians, entitled: “What is the gift of God?”. It was all Greek to me (ha! :unamused:) but hopefully my super-quick summary is a tad quicker to read (though obviously less forceful):

I understand your point. My point however is that as a former A, and moderate C, boasting has the potential to be a problem.

One doesn’t consciously decide to boast, but it is human nature to ’ boast ’ that you have something ( salvation and that you are maintaining that salvation by remaining faithful ) .

I agree with your point that Paul addresses the law and not to boast in law keeping. I also assume that boasting in the ’ law of Moses ’ is another form of boasting in having attained knowledge of Christ, the Gospel, and having the ’ will ’ to have faith. This is really just another form of boasting in the ’ law '.

No room for boasting, but you need a great deal of ’ luck ’ to be lucky enough to be ’ chosen as the elect of God ’ . Therefore, I think the C model involves a great deal of luckiness. :slight_smile:

WE ARE ALL BROTHERS:
You’re over thinking this way too much. Again, my only point was that given a Calvinist or Arminianist viewpoint, the door was opened for sinful people to boast about their salvation. I understand that theologically we’re not supposed to boast but it happens. As for me, when I came to accept that everyone might be saved, I no longer viewed ‘non-believers’ as being on the outside looking in; we were all part of the same group.

Hullo Andrew

Great to be in town with you, sir. And nice to hear a moderate and reasoned voice from Down Under. :smiley:

Thanks for the information you posted on the correct translation and interpretation of the original Greek in Ephesians 2. The article you quoted does seem pretty convincing to this non-Greek speaking ignoramus. But I do still recall somebody whose opinion I respect – could have sworn it was Tom Talbott – maintaining that the ‘it’ was indeed faith.

But ultimately, it makes no material difference does it? Because the point of that passage, surely, is that the whole shebang – grace, faith, salvation – is a gift of God. And that to me speaks against Arminian soteriology. For to say that salvation is a gift, but that you must do something to attain it – even if it is just accepting that gift – seems nonsensical to me.

Which brings us on to sophistry. Now as I say, I’m no Greek scholar. But I do know that sophos is the Greek for wisdom, so presumably you’re complimenting me for my wise assessment of the facts here? :wink:

But just in case you’re not, I hope you will forgive the rather lengthy quotation from Ravi Holy’s excellent critique of ECT from both an Arminian and Calvinist perspective, Damned Nonsense, by way of reply. Ravi does a superb job of addressing this seeming paradox of Universalism, and the article is well worth reading in full, hence I have attached it if you’re interested.

All the best

Johnny
damnednonsense.doc (233 KB)

true, we in life are not always left with more than one choice…

also, i’ve no control over when i was born, or to whom i was born, or any of those circumstances…and apart from suicide have no real control over my time of death, either.

i do believe there’s something to the idea of being held accountable for how we used the measure of freedom we DO have, but apart from some rewards (a bonus, a company car, stock options) which may or may not be symbolic in nature, if i can’t affect my existential status in meaningful ways by any action i take during my life…how could i affect it in the hereafter?
free will is an important concept, but as nobody exists in a vacuum, many things affect what our choices are and more importantly our likely choices. we tend to imitate or do the opposite of people we are inspired by or in fear of, and that also affects our choices.

so for me to declare with confidence that i have freely chosen Christ of my own volition is really me declaring that i reckon i’m pretty darn wise. anyone that disagrees with me becomes by implication foolish. what does the Bible say about being wise in your own eyes?

calvinism is such an obvious joke as to predestination and limited atonement (although they’re right about one thing: God’s capability to save) that i won’t bother commenting on the “cosmic lottery” implied here. pure, obvious rubbish.

IMO they’re both right (about some things) – the Calvs and the Arms. And there is no ground for boasting. God won’t force us against our will; He will woo us until we relent. And there IS a chosen elect first-fruits who are given the measure of faith in this life (because Father knows they’ll run with it, perhaps?) First fruits imply a full crop to come, and besides the barley harvest, there are also the wheat and the grapes to bring in.

We are the body of Christ, if we are among those first fruits, and the privilege of laboring (and suffering) with Him in the harvest falls to us – not because we’re better than the potential workmen who have been waiting all day to be hired at the last hour, but because Father just wanted to do it this way. I’m sure it is the best way, or else He would have done it differently.

i think that’s a good take on it.
when i was being dismissive, it was more the concept of people being predestined to salvation OR hell, no in between. no firstfruits vs full harvest, etc…which is the line most Calvs (unless they are Universalists, which i can respect) take.