Arminianism is God Centered Theology

by Roger E. Olson

Below is a rather lengthy essay I have written. I welcome you to pass it around. It is not copyrighted, but please keep my name and blog address attached to it when you send or post it. [Editor’s Note: The following essay may also be found as a downloadable pdf attachment here: Olson. Arminianism Is God-centered Theology]

ARMINIANISM IS GOD-CENTERED THEOLOGY

One of the most common criticisms aimed at Arminianism by its opponents is that it is “man-centered theology.” (I will occasionally use the gender-exclusive phrase because it is used so often by Arminianism’s critics. It means, of course, “humanity-centered.”) One Reformed critic of Arminianism who frequently levels this charge is Michael Horton, professor of theology at Westminster Theological Seminary (Escondido campus) and editor of Modern Reformation magazine. I have engaged Horton in protracted conversations about classical Arminianism and his and other Reformed critics’ stereotypes of it, but to date he still says it is “man-centered.” Almost every article in the infamous May/June, 1992 special issue of Modern Reformation on Arminianism repeats this caricature of it. Horton’s is no exception. In his article “Evangelical Arminians,” where he says “an evangelical cannot be an Arminian any more than an evangelical can be a Roman Catholic” (p. 18), the Westminster theologian and magazine editor also calls Arminianism “a human-centered message of human potential and relative divine impotence.” (p. 16)

Horton is hardly the only critic who has made this accusation against Arminianism. Several authors of articles in the “Arminianism” issue of Modern Reformation do the same thing. For example, Kim Riddlebarger, following B. B. Warfield, claims that human freedom is the central premise of Arminianism, its “first principle” that governs everything else. (p. 23) That is simply another way of saying it is “man-centered.” Lutheran theologian Rick Ritchie lays the same charge against Arminianism in the same issue of Modern Reformation. (p. 12) In the same issue theologian Alan Maben quotes Charles Spurgeon as saying that “Arminianism [is] a natural, God-rejecting, self-exalting religion and heresy,” and man is the principle figure in its landscape. (p. 21)

Another evangelical theologian who accuses Arminianism of being man-centered is the late James Montgomery Boice, one of my own seminary professors. In his book Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace? (Crossway, 2001), the late pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia wrote that, under the influence of Arminianism, contemporary evangelical Christianity is “focused on ourselves and . . . in love with their own supposed spiritual abilities.” (p. 168) According to him, Arminians cannot give glory to God alone and must reserve some glory for themselves because they believe the human will plays a role in salvation. He concludes, “A person who thinks along these lines does not understand the utterly pervasive and thoroughly enslaving nature of human sin.” (p. 167)

Reformed theologian Sung Wook Chung of Korea, trained in theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, writes that Arminianism “exalts the autonomous power and sovereign will of human beings by denying God’s absolute sovereignty and his free will. Arminianism also regards man as the center of the universe and the purpose of all things.” (“The Arminian Captivity of the Modern Evangelical Church,” Life Under the Big Top, Jan/Feb 1995, pp. 2-3) Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler writes in The Coming Evangelical Crisis about the “human-centered focus of the Arminian tradition.” (p. 34) In the same volume Gary Johnson calls Arminianism a “man-centered faith” and says that, “When theology becomes anthropology, it becomes simply a form of worldliness.” (p. 63)

Perhaps the most sophisticated way of saying the same thing is provided by scholar of Protestant orthodoxy Richard Muller in his volume on Arminius entitled God, Creation and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius (Baker, 1991). Muller writes that “Arminius’ thought evinces . . . a greater trust in nature and in the natural powers of man . . . than the theology of his Reformed contemporaries.” (p. 233) He goes on to accuse Arminius of confusing nature and grace and of placing creation at the center of theology to the neglect of redemption. He writes that Arminius tended “to understand creation as manifesting the ultimate purpose of God.” (p. 233) A close reading of Muller’s interpretation of Arminius’ theology will reveal that he is charging it with being anthropocentric or man-centered rather than God-centered and focused on grace. A close reading of Arminius, on the other hand, will reveal how wrong this assessment is.

What do these and other critics mean when they accuse Arminianism of being “man-centered” or “human-centered?” And what would it mean for a theology to be God-centered, as they claim theirs is? Especially in today’s Calvinist resurgence of “young, restless, Reformed” Christians it’s important to clarify these terms as one often hears it said (as a mantra), that non-Calvinist theologies are man-centered, whereas Reformed theology is God-centered. Their main guru John Piper frequently talks about the “God-centeredness of God” and refers everything in creation and redemption to God’s glory as the chief end. His implication, occasionally stated, is that Arminianism falls short of this high view of God. Too often without any consideration of what these appellations mean, today’s new Calvinists toss them around as clichés and shibboleths.

It seems that when critics of Arminianism accuse it of being man-centered they mean primarily three things. First, it focuses too much on human goodness and ability especially in the realm of redemption. That is, it does not take seriously enough the depravity of humanity and it prizes the human contribution to salvation too much. Another way of putting this is that Arminian theology does not give God all the glory for salvation. Second, they mean that Arminianism limits God by suggesting that God’s will can be thwarted by human decisions and actions. In other words, God’s sovereignty and power are not taken sufficiently seriously. Third, they mean that Arminianism places too much emphasis on human fulfillment and happiness to the neglect of God’s purpose, which is to glorify himself in all things. Another way of expressing this is that Arminianism allegedly has a sentimental notion of God and humanity in which God’s chief end is to make people happy and fulfilled.

Certainly there is some truth in these criticisms, but their target is wrong when aimed at classical Arminian theology. Unfortunately, all too seldom do the critics name any Arminian theologians or quote from Arminius himself to support these accusations. When they say “Arminianism,” they seem to mean popular folk religion, which is, admittedly, by-and-large semi-Pelagian. Some, most notably Horton, name 19th century revivalist Charles Finney as the culprit in dragging American Christianity down into human-centered spirituality. Whether Finney is a good example of an Arminian is highly debatable. I agree with Horton and others that too much popular Christianity in America, including much that goes under the label “evangelical,” is human-centered. I disagree with them, however, about classical Arminianism–about which I suspect most of them know very little.

What would count as truly God-centered theology to these Reformed critics of Arminianism? First, human depravity must be emphasized as much as possible so that humans are not capable, even with supernatural, divine assistance, of cooperating with God’s grace in salvation. In other words, grace must be irresistible. Another way of saying this is that God must overwhelm elect sinners and compel them to accept his mercy without any cooperation, even non-resistance, on their parts. This is part and parcel of high Calvinism, otherwise known as five-point Calvinism. According to Boice and others, theology is only God-centered if human decision plays no role whatsoever in salvation. The downside of this, of course, is that God’s selection of some to salvation must be purely arbitrary and God must be depicted as actually willing the damnation of some significant portion of humanity that he could save because salvation in this scheme is absolutely unconditional. In other words, Calvinism may be God-centered, but the God at the center is morally ambiguous and unworthy of worship.

Second, apparently, for the Reformed critics of Arminianism, God-centered theology must view God as the all-determining reality, including the one who ordains, designs, governs and controls sin and evil, which are then imported into God’s plan, purpose and will. God’s perfect will is always being done, even when it paradoxically grieves him to see it (as John Piper likes to affirm). The only view of God’s sovereignty that will satisfy these Reformed critics of Arminianism is meticulous providence, in which God plans everything and renders it all certain down to the minutest decisions of creatures, but most notably including the fall of humanity and all its consequences, including the eternal suffering of sinners in hell. The downside of this, of course, is that the God at the center is, once again, morally ambiguous at best and a monster at worst. Theologian David Bentley Hart expresses it thus: One should consider the price of this God-centeredness:

It requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of—but entirely by way of—every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known; it requires us to believe in the eternal spiritual necessity of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines (and so on). It is a strange thing indeed to seek [God-centered theology] . . . at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome. (

The Doors of the Sea

[Eerdmans, 2005], p. 99)

Third, to satisfy Arminianism’s Reformed critics, God-centeredness requires that human beings are mere pawns in God’s great scheme to glorify himself; their happiness and fulfillment cannot be mentioned as having any value for God. But this means, then, that one can hardly mention God’s love for all people. One must first say, with John Piper and others, that God loves people because he loves himself and that Christ died for God more than for sinners. The down side of this is that the Bible talks much about God’s love for people—John 3:16 and numerous similar verses—and explicitly says that Christ died for sinners (Romans 5:8). While not canonical, early church father Irenaeus’s saying that, “The glory of God is man fully alive,” ought to be considered to have some validity. Surely it is possible to have a God-centered theology without implying that people created in the image and likeness of God and loved by God so much that he sent his Son to die for them are of no value to God. In fact, some Reformed theologians such as John Piper ironically do violate the third principle of God-centeredness, as it is required by some critics of Arminianism. His so-called “Christian hedonism” says that human happiness and fulfillment are important to theology even if not to God. His mantra is “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” In spite of this saying and his Christian hedonism, overall and in general Piper follows the typical Calvinist line of thinking that human happiness and fulfillment should be of little or no value compared with God’s glory. Another down side of this, besides the Bible’s emphasis on God’s love and care for people, is the picture of God it delivers. In this theology, the God at the center is the ultimate narcissist, the greatest egoist who finds glory in displaying his naked power even to the point of consigning millions to hell just to manifest his attribute of justice.

The point of all this is simply this: It accomplishes very little to construct a God-centered theology if the God at its center is sheer, naked power of ambiguous moral character. “Glory” is an ambiguous term. When divorced from virtue it is unworthy of devotion. Many of the monarchs of history have been “glorious” while at the same time being blood-thirsty and cruel. True glory, the best glory, the right glory worthy of worship and honor and devotion necessarily includes goodness. Power without goodness is not truly glorious even if it is called that. What makes someone or something worthy of veneration is not sheer might but goodness. Who is more worthy of imitation and even veneration, Mother Teresa or Adolf Hitler? The latter conquered most of Europe. The former had little power outside of her example. And yet, most people would say that Mother Teresa was more “glorious” than Adolf Hitler. God is glorious because he is both great and good and his goodness, like his greatness, must have some resonance with our best and highest notions of goodness or else it is meaningless.

All that is to say that Arminianism’s critics are the proverbial people casting stones while living in glass houses. They talk endlessly about God’s glory and about God-centeredness while sucking the goodness out of God and thus divesting him of real glory. Their theology may be God-centered but the God at its center is unworthy of being the center. Better a man-centered theology than one that revolves around a being hardly distinguishable from the devil.

In spite of objections to the contrary, I will argue that classical Arminian theology is just as God-centered as Calvinism if not more so. The God at its center, whose glory, to the contrary of critics’ claims, is the chief end or purpose of everything, is not morally ambiguous, which is the main point of Arminianism. Somehow Arminian theology has been stuck with the bad reputation of believing most strongly in human freedom. That has never been true. Real Arminianism has always believed in human freedom for one main reason—to protect the goodness of God and thus God’s reputation in a world filled with evil. There is only one reason classical Arminian theology emphasizes free will, but it has two sides. First, to protect and defend God’s goodness; second to make clear human responsibility for sin and evil. It has nothing whatever to do with any humanistic desire for creaturely autonomy or credit for salvation. It has never been about boasting except in the goodness of the God who creates, rules and saves.

Why did Arminius reject and why do classical Arminians reject Calvinism? Certainly not because it is God-centered. As I will demonstrate, Arminius’ own theology was fully God-centered in every sense. Arminius and his followers rejected Calvinism because, as Arminius himself put it, it is “repugnant to the nature of God.” (“Declaration of Sentiments,” Works I, p. 623) How so? According to Arminius (and all classical Arminians agree), Calvinism implies: “God really sins. Because, (according to this doctrine,) he moves to sin by an act that is unavoidable, and according to his own purpose and primary intention, without having received any previous inducement to such an act from any preceding sin or demerit in man.” Also, “From the same position we might also infer, that God is the only sinner. For man, who is impelled by an irresistible force to commit sin, (that is, to perpetrate some deed that has been prohibited,) cannot be said to sin himself.” Finally, “As a legitimate consequence it also follows, that sin is not sin, since whatever that be which God does, it neither can be sin, nor ought any of his acts to receive that appellation.” (“Sentiments,” p. 630)

Anyone who has read John Wesley’s sermons “On Free Grace” and “Predestination Calmly Considered” knows very well that he rejects Calvinism for the same reason given by Arminius before him. In the former sermon he described double predestination (which he rightly argued is necessarily implied by classical Calvinist unconditional election) as, “Such a blasphemy . . . as one would think might make the ears of a Christian tingle.” (The Works of John Wesley, 3:III, p. 555) According to him, that doctrine “destroys all [God’s] attributes at once” and “represents the most Holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust.” (Ibid., p. 555) In “Predestination Calmly Considered,” Wesley rejected Calvinism for one reason only: not because it denied the free will of man but because it “overthrows the justice of God.” He preached as if to a listening Calvinist: “you suppose him [viz., God] to send them [viz., the reprobate] into eternal fire, for not escaping from sin! That is, in plain terms, for not having that grace which God had decreed they should never have! O strange justice! What a picture do you draw of the Judge of all the earth!” (The Works of John Wesley, Vol. X: Letters, Essays, Dialogs and Addresses [Zondervan, n.d.], p. 221) Anyone who has read later classical Arminians knows that their main reason for rejecting Calvinism is the same: it impugns the goodness of God and sullies God’s reputation. It has nothing at all to do with valuing human free will in and for itself, and I challenge critics to demonstrate otherwise.

To explain and defend Arminianism’s God-centeredness, let’s begin with the first issue mentioned above as a reason critics give for claiming that Arminian theology is man-centered: the human condition and participation in salvation. Classical Arminian theology, defined by Arminius’s own thought, and by the thoughts of his faithful followers, has always emphasized human depravity just as strongly as Calvinism and it has always given all the credit for salvation to God alone. Anyone who has read Arminius for himself or herself cannot dispute this. The editor of The Works of James Arminius (Baker, 1996 [originally published in England 1828]) says rightly that, “Were any modern Arminian to avow the sentiments which Arminius himself has here maintained , he would be instantly called a Calvinist!” (Editor’s notes to “Twenty-five Public Disputations,” Works II, p. 189) In that context Arminius wrote about the human condition “under the dominion of sin”: “In this state, the Free Will of man towards the True Good is not only wounded, maimed, infirm, bent, and . . . weakened; but it is also . . . imprisoned, destroyed, and lost: And its powers are not only debilitated and useless unless they be assisted by grace, but it has no powers whatever except such as are excited by Divine grace.” (Ibid., p. 192) Lest anyone misunderstand, he drives home his point, saying of man that, in the state of nature, due to the fall, he is “altogether dead in sin.” (Ibid., p. 194) This is not the only place in his voluminous writings where Arminius describes the human condition apart from supernatural grace in this way. In virtually every essay, oration and declaration he says the same, and abundantly! There can be no doubt that Arminius believed in total depravity every bit as much as do Calvinists.

What about free will? What about the human contribution to salvation? Did not Arminius attribute some good to the human person that causes God to save him or her? I’ll allow Arminius to speak for himself on this matter also. Immediately after describing the divine cure for human depravity, which is what is commonly known as “prevenient grace,” which awakens the person dead in sin to awareness of God’s mercy, Arminius says that even “the very first commencement of every good thing, so likewise the progress, continuance and confirmation, nay even the perseverance in good, are not from ourselves, but from God through the Holy Spirit.” (Ibid., p. 195) This is not an isolated quote taken out of context. Everywhere Arminius constantly refers all good in man to God as its source and attributes every impulse and capacity for good to grace. I cannot resist offering one more example. In his “A Letter Addressed to Hippolytus A Collibus,” Arminius speaks of grace and free will:

I confess that the mind of . . . a natural and carnal man is obscure and dark, that his . . . affections are corrupt and inordinate, that his will is stubborn and disobedient, and that the man himself is dead in sins. And I add to this, That teacher obtains my highest approbation who ascribes as much as possible to Divine Grace; provided he so pleads the cause of Grace as not to inflict an injury on the Justice of God, and not to take away the free will to do that which is evil. (

Works

II, pp. 700-701)

The context of this statement makes clear that Arminius’ concern for free will is to avoid doing injury to God’s goodness by making him the author of sin and evil. For him, human free will is always the cause of sin and evil and God is never their cause even indirectly. (Although, it should be noted that in his doctrine of providence Arminius affirms that a creature cannot do anything without God’s permission and even concurrence.) This is the only reason he affirms free will.

What about later Arminians such as the Remonstrants? Sometimes critics of Arminianism allege that the true meaning of Arminianism is to be found in the theology of the Remonstrants, who were Arminius’ followers after his death. Of course, that is like saying the true meaning of Calvinism is to be found in the theology of the Reformed scholastics after Calvin. The truth is that both “Arminianism” and “Calvinism” must be defined by both their namesakes and their most faithful followers. I argue that true, classical Arminian theology was always faithful to and consistent with Arminius’ thought and vice versa. I have demonstrated that in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (InterVarsity Press, 1996).

The normative expression of Remonstrant theology may be found in The Arminian Confession of 1621, written by Simon Episcopius, founder of the Remonstrant Seminary in Holland. In complete harmony with Arminius, the Confession affirms that the fallen human person is completely incapable of saving faith and that he or she is totally dependent on grace for any and every good. In the article on the creation of the world, angels and men, it says: “whatever good [man] has, he owes all solidly to God and . . . he is obligated . . . to render and consecrate the same wholly to him.” (Confession 5.6 as translated by Mark A. Ellis in The Arminian Confession of 1621 [Wipf & Stock, 2005], p. 56) As for the human condition, the Confession says of grace that, “without it we could neither shake off the miserable yoke of sin, nor do anything truly good in all religion, nor finally ever escape eternal death or any true punishment of sin. Much less could we at any time obtain eternal salvation without it or through ourselves.” (Ibid., pp. 68-69) There is nothing “man-centered” about this Confession. Later Remonstrants such as Philip Limborch, who fits Alan Sell’s category of “Arminian of the head” as opposed to “Arminian of the heart,” veered off toward a man-centered semi-Pelagianism. But most Arminians followed the path of Arminius, Episcopius and Wesley, and the 19th century Methodist theologians such as Richard Watson, who averred that even repentance is a gift of God. (Theological Institutes [Lane & Scott, 1851], p. 99)

Anyone who reads these classical Arminians with a hermeneutic of charity rather than a hermeneutic of suspicion and hostility cannot help but see their God-centeredness in emphasizing the absolute dependence of human persons on God’s grace for everything good. All of them repeat this maxim frequently and attribute all of salvation from its beginning to end to God’s supernatural grace. Of course, most Reformed critics will not be satisfied with this. They will still say, as does Boice, that if the sinner, however enabled by prevenient grace, makes a free choice to accept God’s mercy unto salvation that is man-centered rather than God-centered. All I can say to that is that it is ludicrous. The point Boice and other critics continually make is that in the Arminian system the saved person can boast because he or she did not resist God’s grace and others did. All Arminian theologians from Arminius to Wesley to Wiley have pointed out that a person who receives a life-saving gift cannot boast if all he or she did was accept it. All the glory for such a gift goes to the giver and none to the receiver.

The second issue raised by critics of Arminianism has to do with God’s alleged limitations and lack of sovereignty and power. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler writes in The Coming Evangelical Crisis, that, “The Arminian God ultimately lacks omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendent sovereignty.” (p. 34) I argue that this objection carries no weight at all. Anyone who reads Arminius or his faithful followers, classical Arminians, cannot come away with this impression. All emphasize the sovereignty of God over his creation, including specific providence, and all underscore God’s power limited only by his goodness. What throws off Reformed (and perhaps other) critics is the underlying Arminian assumption of God’s voluntary self-limitation in relation to humanity. However, that God limits himself by no means implies that he is essentially limited. According to Arminian theology, God is sovereign over his sovereignty and his goodness conditions his power. Otherwise, he would be sheer, naked power without character. As I argued earlier, that would make him unworthy of worship.

I will begin as before with Arminius himself. What did he believe about God’s sovereignty and power? First, he rightly pointed out that, although he did affirm God’s absolute dominion over creation, “The declaration of dominion has no glory by itself, unless it has been justly used.” (“Examination of the Theses of Dr. Franciscus Gomarus Respecting Predestination,” Works III, p. 632) In his “Private Disputations” and “Public Disputations,” Arminius went to great lengths to affirm and endorse what is called classical Christian theism, with all the traditional attributes attached to it, including omnipotence and sovereignty. A stronger statement of God’s incommunicable attributes could not be found anywhere. As for sovereignty, Arminius confessed that “Satan and wicked men not only cannot accomplish, but, indeed, cannot even commence anything except by God’s permission.” (“Examination of Dr. Perkins’s Pamphlet on Predestination,” Works III, p. 369)

Even some Arminians might find some of Arminius’s statements about God’s sovereignty perplexing, if not troubling. He attributed every power to God and denied that any creature has the ability to accomplish anything, including evil, independently of God. To critics who accused him of limiting God and exalting human autonomy Arminians wrote:

I openly allow that God is the cause of all actions which are perpetrated by the creatures. But I merely require this, that that efficiency of God be so explained as that nothing whatever be derogated from the liberty of the creature, and that the guilt of sin itself be not transferred to God: that is, that it may be shown that God is indeed the effector of the act, but only the permitter of the sin itself; nay, that God is at the same time the effecter and permitter of one and the same act. (Ibid., p. 415)

This is an expression of Arminius’s doctrine of divine concurrence, in which the creature cannot act without God’s permission and aid. God wills creaturely free will and therefore must reluctantly concur with creatures in their sinful acts, because they cannot act independently of him. He does not, however, plan or propose or render certain any sin or evil.

To drive the point home further: In his “A Letter Addressed to Hippolytus A Collibus,” Arminius went to great lengths to affirm divine sovereignty, power and providential control over creation. He speculates that he was accused of holding “corrupt opinions respecting the Providence of God” because he denied that, “with respect to the decree of God, Adam necessarily sinned.” (Works II, p. 698) In other words, he rejected the typical Calvinist view that God foreordained and rendered certain Adam’s sin. However, he averred that, in spite of his rejection of the necessity of Adam’s fall, he did teach a strong and high view of God’s providence:

I most solicitously avoid two causes of offence, — that God be not proposed as the author of sin, — and that its liberty be not taken away from the human will: These are two points which if anyone knows how to avoid, he will think upon no act which I will not in that case most gladly allow to be ascribed to the Providence of God, provided a just regard be had to the divine pre-eminence. (Ibid., pp. 697-698)

What is absolutely clear from the context is that his insistence that liberty be not taken away from the human will has only one motive—that God not be proposed as the author of sin. He had no vested interest in human autonomy or free will for its own sake. His God-centeredness revolved around two foci: God’s untarnished goodness, and absolute creaturely dependence on God for everything good. These cannot be missed as they appear on almost every page of his writings.

What about the Arminian Confession of 1621, the normative statement of Remonstrant belief after Arminius? Did it fall into human-centeredness as critics claim? In its chapter “On hopthe providence of God, or his preservation and government of things,” the Confession avers that “nothing happens anywhere in the entire world rashly or by chance, that is, God either not knowing, or ignoring, or idly observing it, much less looking on, still less altogether reluctantly even unwillingly and not even willing to permit it.” (p. 63) The practical conclusion of the doctrine of providence, the Confession affirms, is that the true believer “will always give thanks to God in prosperity, and in addition, in the future . . . freely and continuously place their greatest hope in God, their most faithful Father.” (Ibid.)

hope this helps !!!