Arminianism Is Anti-God!

Call it what you will, Arminianism, free-willism, anti-Calvinism, no matter what you call it, it is unbiblical and anti-God and a FALSE gospel.

Dave Hunt makes the same mistake that many professing Christians make. He thinks he is more fair than God and so he sits in judgment on the Almighty (though he thinks he is judging the Calvinist) when he makes statements like this:

"Indeed, all of your erudition and careful exegesis using the original languages and grammatical rules is calculated to prove one thing: that God who "is love" does not love everyone, does not want everyone in heaven, has predestined to eternal suffering the unsaved who clearly number in the billions – and even takes pleasure in damning them. I do not believe that is the God of the Bible – and that is the major difference between our two positions."

found in this article:

http://www.conservativeonline.org/articles/misc/Dave_Hunt_Response.htm

The problem is the creature does not possess infinite knowledge nor infinite righteousness and so the creature cannot possibly understand why God would predestine some to heaven and create some for whom Christ did not die, hence they will be cast into hell. God is allowed to do as He pleases with His creation whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, and whether we think its fair or nice or loving OR not. But if we grasp the reality of His elective plan of salvation, and if we instead look at what he HAS done for a remnant of ungodly sinners, RATHER THAN looking at what He has chosen NOT to do for the rest, and if we truly are part of that remnant, AND if we truly understand what we as sinners deserve for our sins, then we will want to join with Paul in proclaiming:

2 Corinthians 9:15 "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."

Afterall, who are we to question the wisdom of God or the prerogotive of the Almighty?

Romans 9:20 "Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? 21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? 22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: 23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, 24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?"

God most assuredly is a God of love. But He is free to manifest that love any way He wishes and He is free to bestow the gift of salvation to whomever He pleases, based not on any merit or value intrinsic to the sinner but solely upon His good pleasure.

1 John 4:9 "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Romans 5:8 "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Some Arminian questions:

When God created Lucifer, the exalted cherub, did Lucifer have free will, or had God predestined him to rebel?
Did Lucifer have the ability to make a choice as to whether he would serve God or rebel against Him?
The same question for the rest of the angelic host: did the angels that followed Lucifer have free will, or were they predestined to rebel along
with Lucifer?
And did the angels that remained loyal to God have free will or were they predestined to remain loyal?
When God created Adam and Eve, did they have free will, the ability to choose to obey God or disobey Him, or were they predestined to
disobedience?
When Adam and Eve gained the knowledge of good and evil by eating the forbidden fruit, was this knowledge of good and evil passed on to their children and ultimately, the entire human race, or does each individual have to learn this distinction for themselves?
Does God have the power to create a being with free will and still retain His sovereignty, or is God limited that if He is to remain sovereign over His creation, no created being can have free will, but must do what God has predestined them to do?
If God is the ultimate source of every created thing, is He ultimately the source of all evil?

Some answers for the Arminians:

Only God possesses perfect righteousness and the ability in and of Himself to maintain that attribute. By creating creatures that do not possess that perfect righteousness and/or cannot maintain that state, does that allow us - the creation, to say that that is a defect in God? Are we allowed to call the Creator evil for doing things that way? "What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us...?" (Romans 9)

As for God being "limited" by His Sovereignty, of course He is "limited". He cannot create creatures that are Sovereign over Himself (whose will overrides His will) and still be Sovereign for that would be a contradiction. God is also "limited" by His many other attributes. His perfect justice "limits" His love. He can only love those to whom He has imputed Christ's righteousness. His perfect holiness "limits" whom He can and will allow into heaven. Only the holy, the redeemed. His perfect righteousness "limits" who qualifies as sinless. Only Christ qualifies. His perfect righteousness also "limits" the sins God tolerates, namely no sin. Yes, the God of the bible is "limited" (or bound) by His word and His attributes. If you wish to think of Him as evil for doing things in a way that you don't think is fair or that you don't approve of or simply don't understand then I suggest you also seriously STUDY Romans chapter 9 and NOT by looking at the commentaries of the Arminians. Romans 9:20 sounds to me like Paul was specifically addressing those who have a problem with God's sovereignty.

Just as God has "limits", so does man. The unregenerated have a will that is free to do only so much and no more. It is a will that is bent towards sin. It is not "free" to worship God in spirit and in truth. The spiritually dead are limited by their deadness. In their dead state they are not able to come to Christ. The dead do not walk, hence they cannot come. Once Christ healed the lame, they could come to him. Once He raised the dead, they could come to Him. But until He regenerated that which was lame and that which was dead, there was no way they could come. Do you believe this?

In John chapter 9 we see that God did an "EVIL" thing when he caused a man to be born blind on purpose:

John 9:1 - "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. 2 And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

In John chapter 5 we see "a great multitude" of crippled people, all of whom Jesus walked by (HOW UNFAIR AND UNLOVING!) with no mention of Him healing any of them except the one particular man whom Jesus chose to heal:

John 5:2 - "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. 3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. 4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? 7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. 8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. 9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath."

Many would think that this kind of a God and Saviour is unfair (who does as He pleases and only saves and heals whom He chooses to heal based on simply "His good pleasure") but who are we to cast judgment on God? If we are truly Christ's, we will bow the knee to God's sovereignty - His right to do as He pleases with His world and His creation - and instead of showing resentment, we will take comfort in knowing that we have a God who "doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" [Dan 4:35].

Problem passage for Arminians: Ephesians 1: says: "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." (emphasis mine)

Question: Since God had predestined the elect to salvation and there was never any question that the elect would be saved, therefore there was never the remotest possibility that anyone who was elected would experience the wrath of God in Hell, just when were the elect "children of wrath"?

Answer: Before they are regenerated, the elect are indistinguishable in their thoughts, words, and behavior than the non-elect. Their "nature" is that of goats, those who truly are under the wrath of God. They walk, talk and act like goats, even though they are lost sheep. When the Holy Spirit regenerates them, the lost sheep become found sheep, and so their nature starts to resemble that of their Father - their Father by adoption into His kingdom. We see a picture of this transformation in Luke 15:24: "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry."

Acts 9:5 - "And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."

Revelation 5:9 - "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation"