WesleyanArminianism

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Wesleyan-Arminianism

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Wesleyan-Arminianism

• The Arminian
• (Choosis an Loosus)

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Wesleyan-Arminianism

• Key Ideas
• Human Freedom
• Conditional Election (Resistible Grace)
• Unlimited Atonement
• Entire Sanctification
• Toleration/Freedom of Conscience

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Arminius

• Scholastic Reformed Theology Obscured Gods Grace
• Supralapsarianism Made God Author of Sin

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The Order of the Decrees of God

• Supralapsarianism
• Sublapsarianism
• Infralapsarianism

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Supralapsarianism

• Elect some, reprobate others
• Create both elect and non-elect
• Permission of the fall
• Provision of salvation of the elect
• Application of salvation of the elect

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Supra-/Infralapsarianism

• Decree to create man
• permission of the fall
• provision of salvation
• election of some, passive reprobation of others.
• application of salvation to the elect

• Decree to create man
• permission of the fall
• election of some, passive reprobation of others.
• provision of salvation
• application of salvation to the elect

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Arminius

• Scholastic Reformed Theology Obscured Gods Grace
• Supralapsarianism Made God the Author of Sin

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Arminius

• Scholastic Reformed Theology Obscured Gods Grace
• Supralapsarianism Made God the Author of Sin
• Humans Retain Free Will

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Arminius

• Scholastic Reformed Theology Obscured Gods Grace
• Supralapsarianism Made God the Author of Sin
• Conditional Election based upon Faith
• Humans Retain Free Will

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Arminius Objections to Reformed Theology

• Scholastic Reformed Theology Obscured Gods Grace
• Supralapsarianism Made God the Author of Sin
• Limited Atonement
• Unconditional Election
• Synthetic Deductive Method

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Arminius

• Unlimited Atonement
• Analytic (exegetical) in method
• Humans Retain Free Will
• Conditional Election based on Foreseen Faith
• Freedom of Conscience

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Remonstrants The Remonstrance

• A Group of Theologians Who Followed Arminius
  Teaching
• Published the Remonstrance
• Point by point opposition to Reformed Scholastic
  Theology
• Precipitated Synod of Dordt

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The Five Points of the Remonstrance

• The decree of salvation applies to all who
  believe in Christ and who persevere in obedience
  and faith.
• Christ died for all men.

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The Five Points of the Remonstrance

• Depravity of the sinner is in extent, but not
  degree so that the Holy Spirit must help men to
  do things that are truly good (like having faith
  in Christ for salvation).
• Gods grace is not irresistible.
• There is the possibility for those who are
  Christians to renounce their faith and be lost
  eternally.

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Arminianism

• Was a reactionary movement
• Had no stable anchor
• Drifted to the left theologically
• Progressively more rationalistic
• Became identified with English Deism

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Influences on Wesleys Thought

• Patristic Orthodoxy
• Gregory of Nyssa
• Macarios the Egyptian
• Salvation as Healing
• Medieval Mystics
• Thomas à Kempis
• Imitation of Christ

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Influences on Wesleys Thought

• Anglican Puritanism
• William Law
• Jeremy Taylor
• Moravians Pietism

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Moravians

• Heirs of John Huss
• Refuge at Hernhutt
• Pietistic
• Missionary Minded

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Moravians

• Origin
• Theological descendants of John Huss
• Persecuted for centuries in native Bohemia
• Move to HerrnhutThe Lords Watch

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Moravians

• Here was a new phenomenon in the expansion of
  Christianity, an entire community, of families as
  well as of the unmarried, devoted to the
  propagation of the faith. In its singleness of
  aim it resembled some of the monastic orders of
  earlier centuries, but these were made up of
  celibates. Here was a fellowship of Christians,
  of laity and clergy, of men and women, marrying
  and rearing families, with much of the quietism
  of the monastery and of Pietism but the spread of
  the Christian message as a major objective, not
  of a minority of the membership, but of the group
  as a whole.
• Kenneth Scott Latourette

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MoraviansThe Hundred Year Prayer Meeting

• On May 12, 1727 Zinzendorf addressed the
  community for three hours on the blessedness of
  Christian unity
• The people sorrowfully confessed their past
  quarreling and promised to live in love and
  simplicity
• On August 5 Zinzendorf and fourteen of the
  Brethren spent the entire night in conversation
  and prayer
• On August 13 Count Zinzendorf visited every house
  in Herrnhut in preparation for this Lord's Supper
• "a day of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit upon
  the congregation it was its Pentecost."

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MoraviansThe Hundred Year Prayer Meeting

• Men and women took the gospel from Herrnhut to
  the uttermost parts of the earth.
• Two weeks after the revival, twenty-four men and
  twenty-four women of the community covenanted
  together to spend one hour each day, day and
  night, in prayer to God for His blessing on the
  congregation and its witness.
• For over 100 years, members of the Moravian
  church continued nonstop in this "Hourly
  Intercession."
• All Moravian adventures were begun, surrounded,
  and consummated in prayer.

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MoraviansThe Hundred Year Prayer Meeting

• They launched a missionary society in a time when
  Protestant missions were unknown. The first
  missionaries, two young men, declared their
  willingness to become slaves if necessary to
  reach the slaves in the West Indies with the
  Gospel.

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The Moravians and Missions

• In 20 years the Moravian community of 600 sent
  out more missionaries than had Protestantism in
  the previous 200 years!
• Within fifteen years of the revival, the
  Moravians at Herrnhut had established missions in
  the
• Virgin Islands,
• Greenland,
• Turkey,
• the Gold Coast of Africa,
• South Africa, and
• North America.
• They endured unspeakable hardships. Many died in
  difficult circumstances. But as fast as they
  died, others came forth to take their places.

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Moravians

• "I have but one passion - it is He, it is He
  alone.
• The world is the field and the field is the
  world
• and henceforth that country shall be my home
• where I can be most used in winning souls for
  Christ.
• Count Nikolaus Ludwig von
  Zinzendorf 1700-1760

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Wesleyan Distinctive

• Sanctification--Christian Perfection
• Perfection is nothing higher and nothing lower
  than this The pure love of God and man, the
  loving God with all our heart and soul, and our
  neighbor as ourselves. It is love governing the
  heart and life, running through all our tempters,
  words, and actions. . . this we confess. . .we
  expect to love God with all our heart, and our
  neighbor as ourselves.
• John Wesley

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Wesleyan Distinctive

• Definition of Sin
• A conscious act of disobedience (to known Law)

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Holiness Movement

• New Denominations
• Wesleyan Methodists
• Pilgrim Holiness
• Nazarenes
• Church of God (Andersen)
• Free Methodists

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Holiness Movement

• Instantaneous Sanctification
• Tended toward legalism and an absolutizing of
  cultural mores

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Wesleyan-Arminian Theology

• Theological Method The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
• Focus Justification as the Gateway to
  Sanctification

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Wesleyan-Arminian Theology

• God decreed salvation through Jesus Christ
• God decreed that those who repent and believe
  would find favor
• God decreed prevenient grace
• God decreed who would be saved or damned based on
  divine foreknowledge

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Wesleyan-Arminian Theology

• Gods relationship with humanity is treated
  familially rather than juridicially
• Predestination is conditional
• God is gracious and acts preveniently in and on
  his creation, while honoring human freedom

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Anthropology

• Dichotomist
• Traducian
• The race was immediately created by God but it is
  continued by the means of natural propagation
• Non-Pelagian view of human freedom based on
  Prevenient Grace

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Hamartiology

• Transmission of Sin
• depravity is inherited
• State of Sin
• original sin
• corruption of human nature
• inherited depravity
• Prevenient Grace

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Atonement

• Unlimited
• Governmental
• Christ is the substitution for the punishment of
  sin. The former is instead of and the later is
  on behalf of the sinner.

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Soteriology

• Synergism
• Assurance of Salvation
• Witness of the Spirit
• Justification
• forensic but can be forfeited
• Perseverance
• Those who persevere are elect but perseverance is
  due to personal faithfulness

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Ecclesiology

• Baptism
• no unified position
• both infant and believers baptism practiced
• Lords Supper
• is the grand channel whereby grace is conveyed to
  the human soul
• the healing grace conferred by the Holy Spirit in
  the sacrament

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Ecclesiology

• Polity
• Modified Episcopal
• Class meetings" (small groups, usual of 12
  believers) where growth and disciple could be
  nurtured

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Eschatology

• No Unified Position

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Contributions

• Hymnology
• And Can It Be?
• O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing
• Class Meetings
• The original small group movement

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Critique

• Soteriology
• Without a solid center
• In asserting human freedom, divine grace is
  obscured
• Definition of Sin
• Trivializes sin

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Critique

• Sanctification
• Unrealistic expectations
• Perfectionistic
• Exegetically suspect
• Slips into legalism
• Fosters pride and condemnation
• Fosters spiritual dishonesty