Help with a research paper

mckestev · Aug 1, 2011

I know I may be touching a dangerous topic, but I could use some assistance. I am trying to gather some scriptural evidence from both sides of the calvinist/arminian debate. In other words, would you all please help me out by offering a list of scriptures supporting each side, with some comments.

Iconoclast · Aug 1, 2011

Click on this link 522 pages free.....

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/lectures-on-calvinism-and-arminianism/1210407

ktn4eg · Aug 1, 2011

If you can find a copy of John Gill's The Cause of God and Truth, I think you'll find it useful for examining the Calvinist interpretation of many scriptures.

Iconoclast · Aug 1, 2011

Here is Gill
http://www.pbministries.org/books/gill/gills_archive.htm

quantumfaith · Aug 1, 2011

Calvinism: A Closer Look

http://www.xcalvinist.com/

Calvinism Critiqued by a Former Calvinist:

http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/openhse/calvinism.html

Perspectives on Election: Five Views

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0805427295/?tag=baptis04-20

glfredrick · Aug 1, 2011

Also, check out Owen, "The Death of Death in the Death of Christ."

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/deathofdeath.html

Let me know if you can refute any of Owen's arguments. :laugh: His use of Scripture is quite extensive.

Edit:

This (not from Owen, but the preface to Owen's work) has meat enough to drive debates on this board for another 12 months by itself, and it is but a shadow of Owen's actual work:

In the last two instances in which discussion on the extent of the atonement revived in the Reformed Churches, there was an essential distinction, very commonly overlooked, between the special points upon which the controversies respectively turned. The object of the article on the death of Christ, emitted by the Synod of Dort, was to counteract the tenet that Christ by the atonement only acquired for the Father a plenary right and freedom to institute a new procedure with all men, by which, on condition of their own obedience, they might be saved. The divines of Saumur would not have accepted this tenet as a correct representation of their sentiments. Admitting that, by the purpose of God, and through the death of Christ, the elect are infallibly secured in the enjoyment of salvation, they contended for an antecedent decree, by which God is free to give salvation to all men through Christ, on the condition that they believe on him. Hence their system was termed hypothetic universalism. The vital difference between it and the strict Arminian theory lies in the absolute security asserted in the former for the spiritual recovery of the elect. They agree, however, in attributing some kind of universality to the atonement, and in maintaining that, on a certain condition, within the reach of fulfilment by all men, — obedience generally, according to the Arminians, and faith, according to the divines of Saumur, — all men have access to the benefits of Christ’s death. To impart consistency to the theory of Amyraut, faith must, in some sense, be competent to all men; and he held, accordingly, the doctrine of universal grace: in which respect his theory differs essentially from the doctrine of universal atonement, as embraced by eminent Calvinistic divines, who held the necessity of the special operation of grace in order to the exercise of faith. The readers of Owen will understand, from this cursory explanation, why he dwells with peculiar keenness and reiteration of statement upon a refutation of the conditional system, or the system of universal grace, according to the name it bore in subsequent discussions. It was plausible; it had many learned men for its advocates; it had obtained currency in the foreign churches; and it seems to have been embraced by More, or Moore, to whose work on “The Universality of God’s Free Grace,” our author replies at great length.

... <snip>

It may be necessary to state precisely what opinion Owen really held on the subject of the extent of the atonement. All opinions on this point may, in general terms, be reduced to four. There are a few who hold that Christ died so as ultimately to secure the salvation of all men. There are others who maintain the view condemned by the Synod of Dort, that by the death of Christ God is enabled to save all or any, on condition of their obedience. There is a third party, who, while they believe that Christ died so as infallibly to secure the salvation of the elect, hold that inasmuch as Christ, in his obedience and sufferings, did what all men were under obligation to do, and suffered what all men deserved to suffer, his atonement has a general as well as a special aspect and reference, in virtue of which the offer of the gospel may be freely tendered to them. Lastly, there are those, and Owen amongst the number, who advocate a limited or definite atonement, such an atonement as implies a necessary connection between the death of Christ and the salvation of those for whom he died, while the actual bearing of the atonement on the lost is left among the things unrevealed, save only that their guilt and punishment are enhanced by the rejection of that mercy offered in the gospel. Hagenbach, in his “History of Doctrines,” vol. ii. p. 255, strangely asserts, that “as regards the extent of the atonement, all denominations, with the exception of the Calvinists, hold that salvation was offered to all.” It would be difficult to specify any Calvinists worthy of the name who hold that salvation should not be offered to all; and it seems needful to state that Owen at least, a very Calvinist of Calvinists, held no such view. On the contrary, among Calvinists that adhere to the doctrine of a definite atonement, it has been matter of debate, not whether the gospel should be universally offered, but on what basis, — the simple command and warrant of the Word, or the intrinsic and infinite sufficiency of the atonement, — the universal offer of the gospel proceeds. Perhaps this point was never formally before the mind of our author, but he intimates that the “innate sufficiency of the death of Christ is the foundation of its promiscuous proposal to the elect and reprobate.”
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