Michael Horton’s presentation In chapter 3, treating election (which is to be “loved before time”), Horton begins by asserting that unconditional election was not a doctrine originated by Calvin and his heirs. It is found in the writings of Augustine, Gregory the Great, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas (54). But the doctrine had […]
In a book review yesterday, Roger Olson expressed his puzzlement about how God’s giving rewards to believers in the final judgment coheres with Calvinism’s monergistic understanding of sanctification. He wrote: “My fear is that Spence, and Calvin before him, rob rewards of any meaning and imply that God is actually rewarding himself and not believers. […]
John Marshall wrote an interesting comment on my post “What makes a theological statement newsworthy?” I will answer it in this post rather than in the comment thread, to allow for broader interchange. John wrote: “I am an undergrad in the UK and working on a dissertation on providence and I am wondering if we […]
Every now and then, I hear some one say that they are Calminian. By this, they generally mean that they do not wish to affirm determinism (that God is meticulously in control in the world, so that even moral creatures always act according to God’s eternal will [Calvinism]), but they also do not want to […]
In the fifth chapter of Against Calvinism, Roger Olson states his objections to the Calvinist understanding of election, and he outlines the classic Arminian alternative. In this post I will deal with his objections, and then I will look at his alternative in a later post. Olson’s representation of the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional […]
Incompatibilism: the core of Olson’s objection to Calvinism In our journey through Roger Olson’s Against Calvinism, I have drawn attention to the prominence of theodicy in Roger’s objections to Calvinism. In his view, God would be a moral monster if he were meticulously sovereign but deliberately rendered certain the horrific evils that have occurred in […]
Last December, when I already had plans to get a blog launched, I came upon a review of my book, Providence and Prayer, in the blog of James Miller. It was an encouraging review that described my book quite accurately. If you are not familiar with that work, you may want to look at Miller’s […]
Reflections on Roger’s model of providence In my last post I began to examine the way Roger Olson understands God’s foreknowledge to contribute to his providential activity in the world, in the fourth chapter of his book, Against Calvinism,. I will continue on that theme in this post and then make some final concluding assessments of […]
Roger’s model of divine self-limitation In my last post in this series, I described Roger Olson’s objections to Calvinism’s model of meticulous divine providence. I am pleased that in that fourth chapter of Roger’s book, Against Calvinism, he briefly outlines his own understanding: divine self-limitation. God gave moral creatures libertarian freedom even though this would […]
The Calvinist doctrine of meticulous providence In the fourth chapter of Roger Olson’s book, Against Calvinism, he addresses the Calvinistic doctrine of divine providence, drawing upon the writings of Zwingli, Calvin, Edwards, R. C. Sproul, Boettner, Helm, and Piper. He finds a common overall model in their works: God is meticulously sovereign in that “everything […]