Arminianism vs. Calvinism (Part One: John 3)

The following was taken from a conversation that I had with a friend of mine, on facebook.com. I have respectfully left his name out of the post so as not to cause any issues between he and I. I’m posting it here because I know the people that read this blog and would like your contribution to this argument. Please feel free to ask questions, post comments or just tell me what a loser I am for wasting time on this stuff. I’m open.

Friend –
let’s start with John 3, vs 16 – 21.
God so loved the world…
…but to save the world through Him….

my mind is open and ready to question, go!

Me –
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3:16-21; NASB)

Sorry I didn’t respond quicker. I’ve been swamped at school this week and haven’t been able to get on.

Okay. Wow. This passage is gonna take a while. I’m probably gonna have to take this one verse at a time, but I will be faithful to the immediate context, John’s intent in writing what he wrote and the overall context of Scripture.

Let’s start with what the passage doesn’t teach before we get into what it does teach.

1) The passage does not teach universalism.
There is a specific group of people that are designated as those who will partake in eternal life; “whoever believes”. This limits the effect of the atonement. The question then becomes, “Who is limiting the atonement?” Those who don’t believe or God Himself? We will address that.

2) The main purpose of the passage is not to teach a Calvinistic understanding of Limited or Definite Atonement.
For a Calvinist to approach this scripture passage with the intent of extracting the Calvinist view of the atonement would be an intellectually dishonest way to approach Scripture. The faithful expositor must approach Scripture with the expressed desire to discover the “intended” message of the author. Nothing more.

3) Though the passage does not overtly teach the Calvinistic understanding of atonement it doesn’t do it damage, either.
This will not be the main focus of my argument, but I will spend a little time, in the beginning explaining how I have arrived at this conclusion so that we are on equal footing.

4) The main purpose of the passage is not to teach an Arminian understanding of Limited Universal Atonement (that is, atonement that is universally available, but limited to those who “of their own will” choose to believe).
I will spend a little time on this as well.

5) The main purpose of the passage is not to overtly deny the Arminian view of the atonement.
Arminianism and universalism were not systematized doctrines in the first century, so we would be foolish to say that Jesus, in this passage, is “responding to the fallacious arguments of John Wesley”. However, as we will discuss, the passage does teach a “limited” view of atonement. Our main purpose, which I also think was one of Jesus’ purposes, will be to determine whom is limiting the atonement.

Friend –
ok, I appreciate that you are establishing parameters for the basis of this study but you may move on. I am not a baby in Christianity, or it’s history, theology, doctrines, etc. and all of the perspective provided above is glaringly obvious. I know a true Calvinist, just as a true Arminian, is trying to see the truth in the scripture, not twist it., I also know that the Calvinist perspective is that this passage does not teach universal atonement, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I also know that Jesus was not responding to John Wesley, give me a break. ;-p

please, continue, but unless you truly desire to define everything you are going to speak on, there is no need, I do not desire a message on Calvinism, I already have studied the perspective and know the history of it as much as Arminianism, I desire a conversation on these verses.

Me –
I’m not trying to lecture you. Though you may not feel that stating our premises before discussing our conclusions is important, it helps me to sort out my thoughts as well as to let you know where I’m coming from. I want to be faithful to Scripture. This takes time. Therefore, I implore you to be patient with me.

There were two fragments of Scripture that you mentioned earlier. I’m assuming that you want to deal squarely with them and not do an exhaustive on all six verses. So, let’s get into them…

“For God so loved the world…”

This poses a major question. Does God love all human beings that have ever existed, currently exist and will ever exist? The short answer; No. There are many texts that answer this question directly (Psalm 5:5; 11:5; Jeremiah 12:8; Hosea 9:15; Malachi 1:3; Romans 9:13). There are people whom God hates. The Bible does not say anywhere that God hates sin, but loves (universally) sinners.

So, why would Jesus say this; “God so loved the world”? There are many hypothetical answers. The best answer, however, is… We don’t know. I am more inclined to believe that He said it to clear up any misunderstanding in the previous dialogue. What do I mean by that?

Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, a Pharisee. The Pharisees were real good at studying Scripture and leaning heavily on the parts that made them look better in the eyes of their contemporaries, but not so much with the passages that didn’t. Therefore, when Jesus said that He would be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, the natural inclination of Nicodemus would have been to think in terms of the implications that this would have on national Israel while disgarding the implications that it would have on the nations as a whole.

A really interesting bit of trivia that I have come across in my personal Bible study time is the fact that the term “Gentiles” is often substituted for the term “nations” when New Testament authors are quoting passages from the Septuagint. So every promise that God gives regarding blessing the nations through Abraham’s Seed and bringing salvation to the nations would have been rendered, in the Septuagint, as blessings and salvation for the Gentiles. This is scandalous for the first century Pharisee.

This use of the term “world” is perhaps a way of dealing with this highly probable bias on Nicodemus’ part. I’m not dogmatic about this interpretation. Therefore, I’ll lean on my earlier answer to the question of why Jesus picks the term “world”; “We don’t know”. What we do know is that, based on systematic evidence from the rest of Scripture, God does not love every human being without exception.

“But that the world might be saved through Him.”

The term “might” here does add some friction for the Calvinist’s argument. At first glimpse it could leave the door open to the possibility of a universal intent for the atonement, but a limited extent for the atonement. The problem, however, with the systematic doctrine of universal intent / limited extent is that it pits the Persons of the Trinity squarely against One Another.

The logic goes like this:
God intended for all to be saved.
The Holy Spirit calls all to be saved.
Jesus only saves some.

In stark contrast to this, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” (John 6:37)

Notice that Jesus says that those that the Father gives “will” come to Him. There is unity within the Trinity throughout the entire process of salvation.

So, why is this term “might” here? Short answer… I don’t know. John doesn’t give any commentary on it. What we do know is that those who are saved, Jesus follows, “[practice] the truth [come] to the Light, so that [their] deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” Notice that the deeds of the believer are being credited to God. This is where you and I have some agreement. We both hold to a certain degree of belief in perseverance of the saints.

Where we disagree is just where this perseverence starts. I would say that all of a persons deeds, even the deeds which lead to justification (repentance and faith) are to be encompassed in this verse. What does this have to do with the term “might” being used by Jesus? The “might” makes the salvation conditional. Based on the context the condition, I believe, is that the person is given grace to repent and believe.

Friend –
I agree with everything you said.

I think this is why I have come to the conclusion that they both must be true (and why it is also ok if we disagree on this) While there may be extensive evidence leaning towards Calvinism over Arminianism, the mights and I don’t knows that in turn can be explained in Arminianism (in which their mights and I don’t knows are then in the areas where Calvinism is firm) is a clue to me that Calvinism is still not the whole of the truth. He did say ‘world’ for a reason and ‘might’ for a reason and it is only our limited understanding of the character of God, not the fallibility of scripture, that makes us ponder as to why. We can guess at this and that forever but the truth is scripture doesn’t give us the answer.

I see a comprehensive understanding of both arguments necessary in developing a Christian doctrinal worldview, but not a decision that only one is true.

In the end, as I said before, after my research I lean more towards Calvinism than Arminianism, but cannot conclude that Arminianism is wrong.

ie I know that the trinity is not in disagreement, but he did say ‘world,’ and ‘might…’ so, 1500 years of human research over Godly words continue to spring up a mystery.

Psalm 131

after 1500 years of debate I do not see this a a cop-out from this 27 year old, but a admittance of intellectual frailty and a submittance to intellectual superiority. Will I continue my study on these, of course, as my relationship with God grows my understanding of Him will grow as well and in turn a desire to understand more, the cycle will never end and I hope it stays that way.

ps, I meant no offense in my previous message, I hope none was taken.