Part two of our response to the philosophical analysis section seeks to apply the famous Genesis 50 text to Walls’ range of options for understanding the nature of human freedom and God’s control. Our conclusion, again, is that the biblical data cannot support anything but the idea that God ordains and directs the free actions of His creatures.

Otherwise helpful, descriptive philosophical categories regarding the nature of human freedom must not become the ultimate boundaries of how we may systematize and confess the Bible’s teaching about the extent of God’s control and its relationship to human responsibility.

That election is “in Christ” does not in any way overthrow the idea that the Father’s election of His people is sovereign, personal, fixed, definite, and individual.

So John chapter six is about Christ’s unity with the Father. Yes, but that does not set aside His clear statements regarding the way in which the Father and the Son save their elect people. The Father drags His previously unwilling people straight to His Son, Who never loses them.

If you were wondering how an educated Arminian would read Romans chapter nine in a way contrary to how we have, here’s your answer (at least the first part of it). The authors make spotty references to this or that phrase in this or that verse and essentially ignore the immediate context of Paul’s argument.

Everyone agrees that the words “predestination” and “election” are in the Bible.  Everyone also agrees that Romans 9-11 is a central passage in understanding what those words mean.  Here, we work verse-by-verse through Romans 9:1-24, in order to show that the straightforward reading of this text indisputably teaches what we today call “Calvinism.”

We present a new series discussing the Calvinism/Arminianism debate by reviewing the new book titled “Why I Am Not A Calvinist.” Today, we alert the discerning reader to some less than helpful analyses and introductions to the topic by the book’s authors.