The following is the fifth – and final – in a series based on a Reformation lecture by theologian H. Ray Dunning and re-formatted for the Holiness Today podcast. The first article dealt with Martin Luther and his understanding of justification by faith alone. This is the continuation of Part I of Dunning’s lecture on Jacob Arminius.
…This does not mean that Arminius thinks of faith as a human possibility. Here’s the point where he seems to be chiefly misunderstood. But it is precisely at this point where he avoided the left-wing pitfall of humanism, or Pelagianism (to use a theological label). In fact, Arminius shared with Calvin the belief in the total inability of man as sinner to save himself along with the correlating fact that salvation was made possible by grace alone. Calvin had said, when the will is enchained as the slave of sin, it cannot make a movement toward goodness, far less steadily pursue it. Every such movement is the first step in that conversion to God, which in Scripture is entirely ascribed to divine grace. Arminius said free will is unable to begin or to perfect any true and spiritual good without grace: “I affirm, therefore, that this grace is simply and absolutely necessary for the illumination of the mind, the due ordering of the affections, and the inclination of the will to that which is good.”
They sound very much alike. But the prime difference is obvious. For Calvin, grace is extended only to the elect, but for Arminius, grace is extended to all men. Thus, God gives to all men – not just certain “select” persons – the possibility of faith. Salvation is God’s work and not man’s, but it is man’s free act of faith which appropriates it. Grace does not destroy freedom, as would be the case if it were irresistible. Rather it restores it.
The logical conclusion of this is that the will can also resist grace. One of the most fundamental points of Arminius’ teaching is found in his statement that “It always remains within the power of free will to reject grace bestowed and to refuse subsequent grace, because grace is not an omnipotent action of God which cannot be resisted by man’s free will.” The further implication of that statement is that falling from grace is also possible. The reception of grace does not invalidate man’s gracious gift of freedom.
One additional point needs to be noted. Arminius suggests that, if faith is a gracious possibility for every man, it is also graciously possible for the believer to continue in faithful obedience to God, that is to serve God perfectly. Acknowledging a distinction between legal perfection and evangelical perfection, he affirmed the possibility of evangelical perfection, emphasizing that such possibility is not based on the perfectibility of man but on the grace of Christ. This was not a central issue with Arminius, however, but the man who made Arminianism a vital factor in the broader history of Christian theology took this point and developed it more fully. I am referring, of course, to John Wesley.
Dr. H. Orton Wiley makes a fine summary statement, which I quote: “Arminianism is a via media between the extreme view of divine sovereignty held by the Calvinists and the equally extreme view of the freedom of the will as held by the Pelagians. Calvinists, however, have persistently linked Arminianism with Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, or they have so defined it as to make it teach that salvation depends partially upon human merit and not solely on the grace of God through faith. It is in no sense related to the humanistic tendencies of these traditional positions, and any attempt to so relate it reveals a lack of knowledge concerning the true nature of Arminianism. What has been true of the teaching was doubtless true also of the man, as the word spoken at his funeral seemed to reveal: ‘There lived in Holland a man whom they that did not know him could not sufficiently esteem, whom they who did not esteem him had never sufficiently known.’”
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