Aug
7
Reformed Arminianism?
“Nothing is more obstructive to the investigation of the truth than prior commitments to partial truths.” — Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609), Dutch theologian
Most people with a little theological knowledge would have to think twice about putting the two words in this post’s title together. I mean, “Reformed” usually refers to Calvinism and the doctrines of grace, a monergistic understanding of Scripture, whereas Arminianism denotes a synergistic understanding that typically repudiates every major doctrinal point in the “Reformed” system. So, how in the world does this oxymoronic title make any sense?
Well, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this post was inspired by a new (to me) book that I have begun reading. That book is Classical Arminianism by F. Leroy Forlines, an eminent Armininian theologian and author. (“Classical Arminianism” is Forlines’ preferred term, but “Reformed Arminianism” seems to be more popular.) Early on in Forlines’ studies, he detected “Reformed” elements in the writings of Jacobus Arminius himself. As such, Arminius is at odds (in those areas) with later Arminian greats like Charles Finney, John Miley, or Orton Wiley.
I have reproduced below for you an excerpt from J. Matthew Pinson’s Introduction to the book, which lays out some of what Forlines teaches in the pages that follow. I thought some of you might find it as intriguing as I did….
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“[Contrary to the governmental view of atonement commonly taught by Arminian scholars, Arminius] plainly articulated a more Reformed understanding of atonement that accorded with the Belgic Confession of Faith and the Heidelberg Catechism, to which he eagerly subscribed. For Arminius, Christ, in His execution of the role of priesthood, becomes the human victim that is offered up to God to appease His justice…. Christ as priest and sacrifice suffers the divine punishment that is due for human sin. This suffering constitutes the satisfaction or payment to the divine justice for redemption of humans from sin, guilt, and divine wrath. Thus Arminius presents an understanding of atonement, in the context of his view of the priestly office of Jesus Christ, that is consistent with the penal-substitution motifs regnant in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Reformed theology….
From this Reformed/Arminian posture on atonement, Forlines extrapolated a Reformed doctrine of justification through faith alone by the imputed righteousness of Christ alone, similar to that articulated by Arminius. This account of atonement and justification affected many doctrines that had traditionally separated Arminians from Calvinists. For example, Forlines’s doctrine of atonement presupposes the seriousness of sin and the complete depravity and inability of people to desire God without a radical intervention of divine enabling grace.
Forlines’s Reformed understanding of justification as the imputation of the active and passive obedience of Christ shifts the focus from the believer’s good works to the merit of Christ. His merit alone clothes believers and gives them their righteous position before God the Judge. Reformed Arminians do not resort to a doctrine of entire sanctification to deal with the problem of sin in the believer’s life. They see a lack of assurance in much Arminian thought and piety that necessitates a doctrine of entire sanctification or Christian perfection. They also see an attenuated doctrine of justification — more in terms of simple forgiveness or pardon rather than imputation — as being at the heart of predominant Arminian views on perseverance, which focus on the believer’s good works as necessary for maintaining God’s forgiveness.
By contrast, Professor Forlines presents believers as secure in Christ, because they have been imputed with the active and passive obedience of Christ. Forlines’s view of perseverance, similar to that of Arminius, holds that believers maintain the freedom to cease to be believers and thus to decline from salvation. Like Arminius as well as Calvin, Forlines believes that justification results in sanctification, that true faith will produce ‘works befitting repentance’ (Acts 26:20). Yet believers are ‘kept by the power of God through faith’ (1 Pet 1:5), not through works. This approach militates against the lack of assurance characteristic of much Arminianism, in which believers can lose their salvation again and again by committing sins and must regain it through repentance to maintain their justification before God.
Thus, there is in Forlines’s theology a logical outgrowth from the Reformed doctrines of atonement and justification. In short, an Arminian acceptance of a Reformed account of atonement and justification affects one’s doctrine of perseverance. Believers persevere solely in union with Christ, imputed with His righteousness; thus continuance is not grounded in forgiveness of post-conversion sins. Apostasy is a once-for-all, irredeemable event, a complete shipwreck of saving faith. This sola fide approach to perseverance and apostasy bases assurance on the believer’s position in union with Christ rather than on one’s efforts. If an Arminian does not accept this perspective, entire sanctification is more compelling as a way to achieve full assurance of salvation.
Another unique feature of Forlines’s Classical Arminianism that arises from a more Reformed understanding of theology is his focus on the election of individuals rather than on corporate election. Unlike many Arminians, Forlines ‘camps out’ in Romans 9 for fifty pages. He does not shrink from the concept that Paul in that chapter is describing the personal election of individuals, not the election of the church or people of God as a corporate entity. Long before E.P. Sanders’s concept of covenantal nomism became commonplace, Professor Forlines was teaching his students in his courses on Romans that Paul in Romans 9 was dealing with the tension in Jewish thought between salvation by works of the law on the one hand and salvation by corporate election of the people of God on the other. In a careful way, Forlines articulates nuanced crosscurrents with aspects of Sanders’s thought. Yet at the same time, Forlines explicates a thoroughgoing penal substitutionary view of atonement together with a doctrine of justification that posits the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer.
In this work, Professor Forlines presents the traditional Arminian view of God’s simple, exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events. Thus he eschews the novel attempts of open theists — so-called ‘free will theists’ — who grant the Calvinists/determinists their argument that God can foreknow only those events that He foreordains. Against both determinism and open theism, Forlines posits God’s exhaustive foreknowledge of all events alongside the significant freedom of personal beings created in His image. However, he also avoids the idiosyncratic views of the Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina known as ‘middle knowledge.’ Forlines believes this construct to be unhelpful and overly speculative as an account of the divine foreknowledge.
Forlines engages in a helpful and extensive discussion of the value of an ‘influence-and-response’ model of divine-human relations as opposed to the ’cause-and-effect’ model of determinist metaphysics, with which he classes Calvinistic views of divine sovereignty. He has a thorough knowledge of Calvinistic approaches to sovereignty and different types of determinism, including Calvinistic attempts at defending a compatibilist or ‘soft’ determinist account of free will. His discussion of these issues will illuminate them for readers on both sides of the libertarian-determinist debate. Calvinists will be pleased with the way Forlines strives to be eminently fair in representing and interacting with their views despite his respectful disagreement with them.”
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I very much lean towards a Reformed understanding of Scripture these days, but there are remnants of my Arminian upbringing that I don’t always realize I’m holding onto. The purpose behind this book obviously piqued my interest, but I also hope that it helps me to work out — or, at least, clarify — some of those issues I’m wrestling with. Maybe it would challenge you (in a good way), too?
