Defining the Terms

Until I went to Seminary, I had no idea that there were labels for different lines of Christian thought.  Neither did I know the specific interpretations of Scripture when taking any one of these views to it's natural conclusion.  So, for our mutual benefit I have reviewed my notes to define the following terms:

Arianism: heresy that arose in the 4th Century that denied the deity of Christ.  This same theology crept up again in the late 19th Century as the Jehovah's Witness.

Pelagianism: heresy condemned in the Council of Carthage in 412 A.D.  It denied Original Sin, i.e. the sin nature, and it denied death as the consequence of sin.  According to this line of thinking man does not need God's grace to stand righteous before God.  Man has the ability to choose to do righteously of his own effort because Adam's sin did not affect his progeny but were born perfect in the likeness of Adam's original creation.  Salvation by grace through faith is unnecessary.  Man is born well and just needs a little guidance from Christ.

Semi-Pelagianism: The synergistic approach to salvation, i.e. God and man cooperate together to affect the man's salvation.  Man has the ability to believe the gospel and therefore receive salvation as a reward of belief.  Belief is the work man does and the grace of God meets man at the point of his/her belief.  Man is born sick and can affect a cure with the help of a physician, who is Christ.

Arminianism: The Remonstrance in 1610 developed these 5 points within the Protestant church.  The controversy that ensued was disputed in a series of meetings called the Synod of Dort.  This is historic Arminianism.

1. Partial depravity.  Man is not affected totally by the Fall; his free will is preserved.
2. Conditional election, otherwise known as foreseen faith.
3. Unlimited/Universal atonement.  Christ only suffered on the cross for humanity.
4. Resistible grace, i.e. Common Grace.  God's grace comes and man has the free will choice to accept or reject it.  (Man has the ability to resist the will of God for his own salvation.)
5. Man can lose his salvation.  He must persist in good works to remain saved.

Calvinism: The elders, pastors, teachers, etc. which met at the Synod of Dort recognized the seriousness of this Arminian heresy and responded with these 5 points which is the same historical position since Christ.  In this view, man is born dead and needs life from the miracle worker, life-giver, who is Christ.

1. Total depravity.  Man is completely affected by the Fall: mind, body, will, emotions, etc.
2. Unconditional election.  Everyone is equally deserving of wrath in Hell, but God chooses some to be saved not based on man's merit nor foreseen faith but based on foreknowledge (i.e. predetermined covenant love).
3. Limited atonement. Christ paid the penalty for the sins of the elect only, not the unrepentant.  He did not merely suffer for sins.
4. Irresistible grace.  God's first work of grace comes to regenerate the sinner, who then sees the beauty of Christ in His holiness and therefore repents.
5. Perseverance of the saints.  The grace of God keeps the believer so that he/she cannot lose salvation, i.e. eternal security by the grace of God.  As a result, the believer will bear spiritual fruit.

Hyper Calvinism: what Calvinism is not.  "It was a system of theology, . . . which was framed to exalt the honour and glory of God and did so at the expense of minimising the moral and spiritual responsibility of sinners to God."  (Peter Toon, The Emergence of Hyper Calvinism in English Nonconformity 1689-1765 (London: The Olive Tree, 1967), 144,145.)  A man may not be exhorted to do anything he is spiritually incapable of doing because Adam was not created with the capacity for faith, having walked in God's presence before the Fall.  "Since, therefore, [saving faith] was no part of his powers in the unfallen state, it could not now be required of him in the fallen state." (Thomas Nettles, By His Grace And For His Glory (Cape Coral: Founders Press, 2006), 428.)  This is the system of thought that kills evangelism for obvious reasons.

My notes are courtesy of a Survey of Systematic Theology course taught by Dr. Bruce Ware of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.  Visit the Desiring God website and search for "5 points of Calvinism" and you will read about it more in depth.  An excellent church history is found in the aforementioned Nettles text.  The DVD entitled, Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism, is a wonderful resource developed by the Apologetics Group.