Author Archives: Bobby Grow

New Master of Reformed Studies Degree Presented in English at the University of Geneva

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For those looking to do an MA aka MRS degree in Reformed studies, here’s an opportunity. A hybrid: first semester coursework online. Second semester, in residence at Geneva. Third semester, back home and by distance working on your thesis (it is a three semester degree). Very affordable, other than the semester in Geneva (living costs etc). But the program itself is also funded, which makes it that much more doable for the right person.

Here is how the degree itself is introduced and described at the University of Geneva’s website:

The University of Geneva’s Faculty of Protestant Theology is pleased to offer a new Master, taught in English: Master in Reformed studies (MRS)

This program, which is offered in partnership with the University of Geneva’s Institute of Reformation History, is designed for students from across the world who wish to gain an expertise in the Reformed tradition, from its roots in the Swiss Confederation to its current existence across the globe. The Reformed tradition emerged in the independent city of Geneva in the 1520’s and 1530’s. It is a multifaceted tradition, and to study it calls for an interdisciplinary approach that combines history, exegesis, theology, and ethics.

This is the goal of the present Master program. Courses explore the history of biblical interpretation and the emergence of Reformed communities, the study of key theological developments across the last five centuries or the main characteristics of Reformed ethics and practices (past and present).

The University of Geneva’s Master in Reformed Studies is the ideal program to deepen your expertise on a significant, vibrant Christian tradition. It offers the possibility to study in one of its key historical places : the city of Geneva, home base of John Calvin and the starting point for the spread of the Reformed tradition to France, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Hungary and, eventually, all over the world. It is an excellent way to deepen your knowledge of Protestantism and, for those who are interested in this path, to prepare for further, doctoral studies.

The Faculty of Protestant Theology is a direct heir of the Academy (Académie de Genève) which John Calvin founded in 1559. Since the 19th century it has been a part of a distinguished state university to which it gave rise : the University of Geneva. The Faculty of Theology is both anchored in the Protestant tradition and open to the modern world, to the critical, historical as well as the systematic study of the Christian faith, its sources, and its implications.

The Institute of Reformation History, founded in 1969, is a research center at the University of Geneva, dedicated to the historical study of the ideas, institutions, and practices of the Reformation. It hosts several international research projects and houses a unique collection of rare books and archives on early modern religious history.

Click Here for more information.

The First § of My Doctoral Thesis Proposal: Rough Rough Rough Draft

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Credit, Carlos Padilla for giving me the idea to make something like this LOL

I am just starting to write my very first rough rough rough draft for my proposal. The below represents the opening section. Just know, this is off the top at this point. I will come back later and redraft, and then redraft, and then redraft, inclusive of footnotes peppered here and there throughout. Cleaner turns of phrases. More precise explication. Better structuring, so on and so forth. The total proposal runs between 15 to 20 pages. This, below, is the very first substantive section of it. And again, extremely rough. But I’m thinking of doing this at points in case anyone wants to give me feedback, or press me on things.

III. Why does human agency in a doctrine of sanctification in a ‘Christological Objectivism’ invite further engagement?

A doctrine of sanctification is typically understood as the ‘subjective’ aspect of the soteriological combine (juxtaposed with a doctrine of justification and glorification). That is, sanctification within a Protestant frame, is that aspect of salvation wherein the human agent is understood to be actively ‘working out’ their salvation. As the Apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:12–13). This locus classicus points up what might appear to be competing themes; that is, between the human agent, ‘the one who works out salvation,’ and God ‘who works in you to will and to act,’ in this agential fulcrum of salvific workings. More pointedly, this apparent competition between God and humanity, in the soterio-logic of the Gospel reality, appears to potentially place divine agency into a contraposing position vis-à-vis the human agent wherein the divine being swallows up the human being, to the point that the divine being is the only one who has performative agency in the totality of the salvific event. Hence, a ‘Christological-objectivism’ ostensibly obtains wherein individual human beings/agents have no real personal agency within the circumscription of God’s life for them in Jesus Christ.

Conversely, Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, and his best Anglophone student, Scottish theologian, Thomas Forsyth Torrance, both have been charged with operating with a Christological obejectivism within their respective soteriological offerings. That is, because of the emphasis these theologians, respectively, place on ‘God’s being in becoming’ for the world in Jesus Christ, as God is understood to be the electing God who has freely and graciously become the elected man, the elected human for the world, they are criticized with constructing a ‘metaphysical human,’ a human (in Christ) operating behind the back of individual human beings (in totality). As such, the concern is that if this were to be the case, that both Barth and Torrance, respectively, sublimate an integral human agency by the singular human agency of Christ for them. Thus, human agency becomes a mere phenomenological phantom acting out a determinacy absolutely funded by God’s agency, as that is diffuse for humanity, in the singular humanity of Christ. Therefore, in this understanding, the criticism maintains that both Barth and Torrance are guilty of misoffering an account of human agency, particularly as that is played out in a doctrine of sanctification, wherein the human agent is freely and ostensibly ‘working out their salvation,’ compelled by their own, albeit contingent, gift of human freedom coram Deo.

The dilemma this thesis seeks to provide dénouement for is the ostensibly competitive relationship between God and humanity in a doctrine of sanctification. Wherein, the purported ‘Christological objectivism’ present in both Barth’s and Torrance’s theologies, constructs a situation that so makes God, as ‘the author and perfector of faith,’ the absolute terminus of the total event of working out one’s salvation, that the human agent ends up having no real integral agency of their own in the process of becoming ‘set apart’ (sanctified unto God).

After the details of Barth’s and Torrance’s doctrines of sanctification have been presented vis-à-vis human agency, within that doctrine, this thesis will constructively engage with the themes present within said theological themes, and make a turn to the ethical question of a doctrine of sanctification and human agency within the question of the Christian’s role in the violences of war, pacificism, activism, and like ethical dilemmas the Christian is oft faced with in the 21st century global geo-political landscape. The application of a doctrine of human agency within this ethical and sanctificational ambit, particularly as these themes have already been treated by engagement with both Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance, respectively, will provide a concretization in the real and present world where Christians attempt to ‘work out their salvation’ when confronted with the ethical and political events this current age offers up. As a case study, in this section of the thesis, I will engage with Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he was faced with the reality of Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer will make an excellent study, insofar that he was a known Christian pacifist, but who also ended up engaging in a plot to commit tyrannicide against Hitler.

On Being “Right”: In Response to Wes Huff

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Wes Huff (X post):

If your theological convictions are not actively making you more gracious, humble, and repentant than [sic.] your beliefs are not being shaped by Jesus they’re motivated by a desire to be argumentatively “right.”

Bobby Grow’s response:

Some of our best theologians were rascals. Not that it makes it right, but it is to point out that Jesus’ approach is big enough to encompass the personalities and passions he has disposed us with. To me, it is all about a broader ethic of love one for the other. To be “right” is still to be right even if gotten at in the wrong way. But this attests to the mercifulness and graciousness of the Lord’s reality and not ours. Jesus wasn’t and isn’t a Pietist, a Victorian, or a Schleiermacherean; he is Theanthropos (Godman) with all of the entailments of humanity (indeed, as he Self-determined those to be in his choice to be God for us, in us, and with us by the Holy Spirit).

Christian Reductionism and the Fatalization of the Christian Life

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Christian reductionism has probably produced more spiritual fatalities than anything else. The way I define Christian reductionism (CR) is in this way: Christian reductionism is when professing Christians come to think, typically subconsciously, that they have arrived. That they have come to experience the pinnacles of Christianity in their daily and mundane experiences, even as those might entail “mountain top experiences,” and extrapolate from there that there is nothing more. Often, subsequent to this type of reasoning, people attempt to live within the formalism of the way that Christianity has been snapshotted for them in their own experience, but ultimately come to lose interest in the Christian life (inwardly). This loss of interest, under the terms of CR that I am currently defining, pivots on the individual’s belief that they have already exhausted the depths and heights of Christianity, of the Gospel reality, at which point they see no more space for growth (even though they wouldn’t admit it). Following, a fatalistic attitude towards the Gospel comes to consume their lives, and they begin the process of compartmentalizing their Christian life into a banality of just one piece of their daily existences, knowing that they at least are probably on their way to Heaven, and simply settle-in for the long haul (or the shorter haul, as the case may be).

Sadly, they have believed a lie. For the CRs the broader society, the cultural upheavals and underheavals, daily life, the perceived wins and losses, simply become apiece with what they believe the Christian life to be; just one more aspect of what it means to be alive. Sadly, they have believed a lie. They have become participants in a Folk Religion, rather than in the faith of Christ. But I don’t think it is a stretch to say that this type of religion is the dominant undercurrent of what makes up most of Western Christianity today in the 21st century.

The Gospel is radical. And it requires effort, spiritual battle, recognition, a fight, and an unwillingness to allow oneself to reduce the Gospel to one’s own parochial rendition of it. The Gospel life is charged through with the energy of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ Himself. It surely has a sobriety to it, but the sobriety of a stately Lion laying around in his domain on the Masai Mara. PS. Of course, when I say it requires effort etc., what I’m referring to is living the Christian life, not becoming a Christian or coming into the family of God in Christ. Living the Christian life requires effort though.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. -I Corinthians 15.58

The Holy Spirit “in” Apostolic Succession

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Latin ecclesiology and authority is really just the institutionalization of the Holy Spirit. A circumscription of the hypostases of God the Holy Spirit, by the raw claim that an ecclesial institution, based on sociological and legal phenomena—and thus a natural theology—have been given the rite to enclosure the Spirit of Liberty for its own self-acclaimed “Apostolic” purposes. Of course, when the Holy Spirit is contained by such institutionalizing means, He becomes depersonalized, and only an instrumentalized particle by which spiritual authority is presumed upon, by an ad hoc claim to an apostolicity that ostensibly holds the Spirit for its own self-perceived purposes as the one true Church on earth. But this acclamation rings hollow when in fact, the Holy Spirit isn’t allowed to be the third person of the triune God. He is not a ‘particle’ of an ecclesial machine, but the Spirit of God who blows and hovers where He will. Not my will, but thy will be done, Father.

The 20th Century Swiss Evangelical Church in Concert with the 21st Century North American Evangelical Church

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A Church in Basel, Switzerland

As an evangelical (at least that’s my pedigree from birth), here in the 21st century, things have become rather dire, in my opinion, with reference to finding sound so-called “evangelical churches.” This is no abstract thing for me, but an ongoing reality. We have literally been churchless for quite a while now (we watch a home church of ours back in Southern California online every Sunday morning, which isn’t ultimately sufficient; as far as real life in-person fellowship etc.) We have tried multitudes of “evangelical churches,” and not to be reductionistic, they are all almost exactly the same. They still have 1990s seeker sensitive programs ongoing—with 21st century technology—and/or personality cult driven pastorates that only stay viable until said pastor dies or retires (which such pastors rarely do). But the actuality of Christ is really nowhere to be found; in name only. Bibles are nowhere present, not in the hands of the people (some of that is tech related, but not really, I don’t think), and the sermons mostly mimic bad Ted Talks. The worship/music part of it appears to be something more like American Idol tryouts than it does actual leadership to worship of the triune God. Beyond that, and based on a relatively recent poll of evangelicals, most don’t even believe that or know if Jesus Christ is fully God. The sound doctrinal body of teaching is lacking to the point that it is non-existent; which then that vacuum only leaves room for bad doctrine. This is a lamentable thing.

And yet the aforementioned, unfortunately, isn’t unique to the 21st century evangelicals. Here is Karl Barth discussing his own experience of the “church” in his early to middle 20th century context in his native Switzerland:

It hardly needs to be said that we are dealing here with a point of view which has been most flagrantly neglected in modern Protestantism since the 18th century. From the visible standpoint our Protestant national Churches are little more than great unions, or communities of interest, of individuals who are Christian or are called Christian, individualists, each of whom—like the people of Israel in the time of the Judges—does that which is right in his own eyes, so that although some may act together in particular ecclesiolae [churches] called movements, we cannot inquire too closely what it really is that unites them. Even less can we inquire what these Churches are as a whole, a question which would yield the most gratuitous and to a large extent unconvincing answers. If we will and can and must maintain the form revealed in them, then we can only sigh: Kyrie eleison. Destroying as they do the relationship between the community and its members, they are hopelessly a-catholic Churches, hardly distinguishable, if at all, from heretical sects, or sects which verge on heresy, in the matter which now concerns us.

The most obvious example is the 1911 Constitution of the Evangelical Reformed Church of the City of Basel. It begins with a kind of hymnal introit to which a conscientious exegete could hardly give any but an Arian sense . . ..[1]

What is the common identifiable theme that holds Barth’s early to middle Evangelical Reformed church together with the North American evangelical church of today? Embedded in the passage from, where he notes, “It hardly needs to be said that we are dealing here with a point of view which has been most flagrantly neglected in modern Protestantism since the 18th century. . ..” It is the Enlightenment tentacles, and its anthropology of turn-to-the-subject that has helped to tie the whole modern and postmodern churches together (there are other factors, as well). A spirituality where individualism reigns prime, romanticist feelings cajole the heart-strings, and personal interest sublimates the interests of the living God. Kyrie eleison indeed!

Are there exceptions? Always. In fact, we are looking for an exception currently; so please keep that in prayer if you would. Note: I am not implying or presuming that we are looking for a “perfect church.” Nein. We are simply looking for the church in its local expression. An environ wherein the church is being the Church by genuinely bearing witness to her reality in Jesus Christ and the triune God.

I am remaining charitable in my language throughout this post. The so-called evangelical church has already gone right by the impasse, and she doesn’t even realize it. She indeed functions as a series of social clubs with the name of Jesus Christ splattered all over her programs and multimedia presentations. Good intentions, and smiles are not enough to gloss over the tragedy of it all. Only repentance, as if ancient Israel before God, will do. Kyrie eleison.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1 §62 [521–22] The Doctrine of Reconciliation: Study Edition (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 195.

PS. I also work on call 24/7 which makes “church shopping” that much more difficult. But I know we will eventually find something.

The Primacy of Christ: Ecclesiology and Protology

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Some brief interactions I’ve recently had on X with reference to a question on the relationship between Christ and creation, and another question on how I view the institutional church on earth. These questions were posed by two different interlocutors. The one on the institutional church has some further interaction behind it that I won’t share here. Interestingly these two loci are not unrelated; i.e., a doctrine of creation and an ecclesiology. A genuine Christian dogmatics sees the taxis, the order and interrelationships that all inhere and cohere in and through, we might say, their Archimedean and primordial point in Jesus Christ; who is the triune God for the world in his being in becoming, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in whose works are indivisible from his reality as God.

Interlocutor 1. Trying to understand what you’ve written here… Are you saying that no institutional church exists on earth?

My response. No, I’m saying that the institutional church on earth only becomes that by her active union with Christ; who in fact, in his Theanthropic person, in His vicarious humanity for the world, is in fact constituently, in himself, the institutional church—“for as He is so also are we in this world.” 1 Jn 4.17

Addendum: Christoph Schwöbel, writes, with reference to Barth’s conception of the visible and invisible church (and this is what my thinking reflects as well):

For Barth, the visible Church is also an article of faith. The church is believed both as invisible and visible Church. “Visible” and “invisible” are not two species of the same genus, he emphasizes, but one and the same subject in two respects. In order to explain the dialectic, Barth points to a parallel in his doctrine of the Word of God. Just as God’s revelation is the Word becoming flesh in Christ, this Word becoming Scripture and Scripture becoming a human word in proclamation, so the invisible Church is where the visible Church is. However, the visible church can never by itself be an object of faith; the visible Church belongs to faith as pointing to its ground in God. By itself, it is a creature in which one cannot believe, because one can only believe in the creator. Everything else is idolatry. Therefore Barth can say: “One believes in God when one believes in the visibility of the Church that falls from above into history—because that is He, that is His work of reconciliation—just as an individual human person believes in God by believing in the grace falling from above into his boundless unholiness.” Believing in the Church means to believe in God as God creates, preserves, and perfects the Church. For Barth it is therefore clear that the visible church witnesses to the invisible church and in doing so witnesses to God as the only object of faith: “The glory of the church is to give all glory to God.”[1]

Interlocutor 2. Does Christocentrism deepen the reality of created, historical existence, or does it end up quietly dissolving it into something more like a single, seamless divine act?

My response. There are many versions of “christocentrism” out there. The one I follow sees Jesus as the whole reason for creation (see Col. 1.15 and the primacy of Christ therein). Also, following Barth, the external creation is really just the inner relation of God’s covenanted life of triune grace, given expression as the effulgence of who He has freely chosen to be for and with us in Jesus Christ. So, yes, contra a torpid pantheism, or panentheism, the created reality, in the account I follow, is charged with God’s triune being in becoming for us in Jesus Christ. Which would entail that He is closer to us and all of creation than we are to ourselves. David Fergusson rightly opines: “the world was made so that Christ might be born.”

As usual my own thoughts, idiosyncratic as they are, are indeed mine. They require greater clarification and “fleshing” out than my off the top responses have rendered. But that does not mean that type of work or thought hasn’t or cannot be done. Time and space restraints are always a factor when engaging in a communicative act. In other words, I recognize my responses require further explication, but since they are brief responses intended for social media consumption, they will remain as currently stands. That isn’t to say I am not willing to hash things out further; or that I’m not open to further interrogation. It just means that these responses represent a running commentary on where I am at myself in the developments of my own thinking on these matters.

Interior rerum creatarum natura in foedere gratiae trina est.

[1] Christoph Schwöbel, “’The Kingdom of Christ Now Present in Mystery,’ and the Question of the ‘Distance between Christ as Lord, King, and Judge and His Church,’” edited by Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack and Thomas Joseph White, OP, Dogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth’s Ad Limina Apostolorum (Washington D.C., The Catholic University of America Press, 2020), 104-05.

On the Novices Mixed Up With Digital Theology

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It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. 2An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money. 4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity 5 (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?), 6 and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. 7 And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. I Timothy 3:1–7

‘. . . and not a new convert. . ..’ This reference has nothing to do with biological age, but spiritual age. Young Timothy was biologically young, but spiritually mature nonetheless. Even so, Timothy is something of a spiritual prodigy in certain ways, and wouldn’t necessarily constitute the rule, but more of an exception. To be spiritually mature typically requires time. The Apostle Paul himself spent years of time growing and spiritually maturing before he presented himself before the Apostles in Jerusalem. As such, as a general rule, I think it is safe to note that getting beyond the ‘novice’ label, the baby Christian stage and into adulthood from there, is a condition for being an elder and/or more generally a teacher in the church of Jesus Christ.

Even so, the learning curve is different for everyone; and only the Lord can ultimately confirm or deny those He would place in the role of an elder or even teacher in His church. The church itself is left with the task of discernment; and this itself is not an abstract action, but one in full dependence on the same Holy Spirit who raises up and puts down the would-be leaders in the church. Clearly, the ‘Pastoral epistles’ go on and give lists of attributes that ought to be present in those men who are recognized as elders in and for the church; and these attributes can generally be extrapolated out to any teachers in the church (men or women).

Yet, enter the digital online ‘Christian’ world. There are novices galore. They have no recognized training, and even if they do, they have anonymity to do as they will (even when using their real names). These novices are easy to spot; they foment division among the brethren and sistren; they engage in sectarian ways that elevate adiaphora to levels of essential and thus required doctrines in order for there to be unity among the churches in the Church. And in this elevation, they spread the yeast of disunity among the saints. A chaotic mood that comes from a sense of vaingloriousness that the would-be teacher (who in fact turns out to be a novice) moves and breathes in and from in all of his/her activities as “theological educators.” In the end, such novices don’t foster the unity already referred to, but an us versus them attitude that punctures the unifying ground that all Christians share in the singular person of Jesus Christ; the Church’s concrete esse (being) and res (reality).

Conversely, the aforementioned ought to evoke a sense of sobriety and seriousness as any of us attempt to “teach” others the Word of God; particularly as that is undertaken online. Whether that be through written or audible media. There ought to be the realization that when we portend to bear witness to Christ in ‘authoritative’ ways, when we set ourselves up as teachers, that we will entail a ‘stricter judgment’ in the End. And to me, what this means is that what the would-be theologians and Bible teachers ought to strive for is to ‘rightly divide the Word of God, which is truth.’ Further, what this ought to entail is that the teacher does their due diligence in constantly learning; learning from the teachers and doctors and evangelists that Christ has provided His Church with; for purposes of her edification. This requires that the theologian, the Christian in general, operates from a humble, teachable spirit. Clearly, given the eschatological nature of theology and theological knowledge, in regard to theologia nostra (‘our theology’), none of us will ever “arrive” this side of the Eschaton. We all, inclusive of the teachers, elders, evangelists et al. see the reality as if looking at a puzzle; with greater vantages of clarity or lesser, as the case may be. If internalized in an unhealthy way, this might cause a paralysis; it might cause the teacher to wonder how they can speak God at all. And so, we walk humbly before our God in Christ.

Doing ministry, especially teaching ministry, ought to be a sobering thing. But when we enter places like Twitter, and other like online forums where professing Christians congregate, the exact opposite of sobriety is on display. What dominates such spaces is the novice way. And thus, as the Apostle Paul warned Timothy, there are many operating in the ensnarement of the devil himself. This ensnarement cultivates an atmosphere deoxygenated by the spirit of antiChrist. A wisdom from below rather than above, and as such, all that is demoniac and topsy-turvy becomes the prevailing marker of the ostensible discourse. In fact, it isn’t a coherent discourse that obtains under such pressures, but a baby-like gibberish and drooling, that ultimately calls for a naptime; and beyond, some requisite discipline that disallows or discounts what is being gibbered until some level of coherent and sober speech that actually bears witness to the risen Christ and triune God can be produced.

Kyrie eleison

The Arminians Versus the Calvinists: Human Freedom and Divine Sovereignty in Combine

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The battle of the Arminians and Calvinists continues on ad infinitum; indeed, in different expressions and levels of discourse. Nonetheless, the gruel continues unabated. Ironically, and historically, the Arminians, particularly, Arminius himself, weren’t outwith, but within the Reformed halo. As is commonly understood, Arminius was intent on engaging with the theological-anthropological conundrum of human freedom vis-à-vis God’s ostensible sovereignty (as the Calvinists were wont to press in their own stylized way). It wasn’t, of course, that Arminius was attempting to undercut the Calvinist notion that God is sovereign—God forbid it!—but instead, he was challenging the character and way of God’s sovereignty related to human freedom. Jaroslav Pelikan offers nice coverage on this:

The most controversial attempt at such an elucidation within the Reformed communion was the one associated with the names of Jacob Arminius and Simon Episcopius, which eventually challenged openly the central affirmations of the Calvinistic doctrine itself. Arminian acquired its own confessional status in the Remonstrance of 1610 and then, after the Synod of Dort, in the Remonstrant Confession of 1621/22. Reiterating and developing many of the objections to predestinarianism that had already been current during Calvin’s lifetime, the Arminian and Remonstrant protest focused on the problem of will: of the human will as responsible for conduct and therefore in some genuine sense free of “fatalistic necessity”; and of the divine will as addressed to all and therefore in some genuine sense universal, but also as free of sin and evil and free coercion, since such freedom was “the perfection of the [divine] will.” Calvin’s “fictitious fate of predestination” was “hostile to religion” because it managed to undercut both the free will of God and the free will of man. Against “the iron and fatalistic necessity of the Stoics, Manicheans, and Predestinarians,” as well as against the “blind chance” of the Epicureans, stood the biblical doctrine of “the providence of God in the world, which rules everything in a wise, holy and just manner.” The providence of God, which followed immediately upon creation and which extended also to the work of redemption, was universal in scope, pertaining to “this entire universe and especially to man,” as an expression of “the wisdom, justice, and equity of God.” These divine attributes of wisdom, justice, and equity, as disclosed in providence, meant that God was free from “any internal necessity of his own nature or of any external power of some other force”; therefore it was Arminian and Remonstrant doctrine, no less than it was Calvinist doctrine, that God did foreknow future contingents and that he was free “to dispose for his creatures whatever he wills,” death or life, command or prohibition.

It was likewise Remonstrant doctrine, no less than Calvinist, that the grace of God, defined as “undeserved and unmerited favor,” was, as the Remonstrance put it, “the beginning, the progress, and the completion of all good.” But that did not mean that grace was “irresistible.” The analogy, drawn by Augustine and after him by Calvin, between God’s call to faith and the summons to resurrection addressed by Christ, irresistibly, to a dead body, was fallacious. For “those whom God calls to faith, he calls seriously”; if it were impossible to resist the grace of God, his offer of “a reward for Christian virtue” and his threat of punishment for immorality would both be vain. On the other hand, the distinction between what God willed and what God permitted, which Calvin had dismissed as a “falsehood” and an “evasion,” was essential to prevent “the overthrow of all religion”: divine permission did not imply that “it is not possible for anything but disobedience to follow,” but rather that “man can be disobedient, yet only if he so wills.” Therefore God permitted evil not because he will it, but to leave man free. And, contrary to Calvin’s theory, it was similarly “with the permission of God and in accordance with his just judgment,” but by their own action, that the hearts of sinners were “hardened.” Hardening, also in the case of the Jews, was a divine “declaration,” not the initiative of a divine “action.”[1]

A rather succinct presentation of the primary theme[s] present between the Remonstrants and the Calvinists.

I would suggest there is a better way. It is unnecessary to place humanity and God and God and humanity into either the Arminian or Calvinist combine. All that is required to overcome such enmity is to think the relationship between God-humanity through the singular personalis (person) of Jesus Christ. Both God’s downward movement to humanity and humanity’s upward movement to God can be understood from within this miraculous nexus. When election, predestination, human freedom vis-à-vis Divine freedom/sovereignty, so on and so forth becomes the ambit by which such loci is imagined, the Gordian knot of inimical theofare, as that obtains between the “Arminians and Calvinists,” is once and for all cut through.

Pax mundi theologica obtenta est.

[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300—1700), Volume 4 (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1977), 233–34.