The Sovereignty of God and the Will of Man in the Writings

of Jacob Arminius and Clark Pinnock

 

            Throughout much of the history of Christianity there has been a strong tendency to ascribe to mankind the attribute of free will. In other words, many have championed an anthropology which sees people as the lord of their fortunes and the self-determiner of their destinies. Indeed, from the times of the Church Fathers[1]it has been widely argued that freedom of the will is a necessary attribute if people are going to have the ability to make meaningful and/or responsible moral decisions.[2] This freedom of the will has typically been referred to as the ability to make moral choices without external or internal determiners.[3] In other words, if people are truly morally culpable for their actions then they must possess the ability to make free choices and therefore must be self-determined, at least relatively speaking.[4] The difficulty with this view is that it calls into question the sovereignty of God. In other words, if the unfolding drama of human history is largely, if not solely, determined by the free choices that people make on a daily basis, in what sense can we say that God is in control? So, we must ask, can we have it both ways? Can God be in sovereign control over the events of human history without jeopardizing human autonomy? Or to state it in the reverse, can people be the determiner of their own destines and the unfolding drama of human history without jeopardizing the traditional model of the sovereignty of God? These are the questions this paper seeks to address. More specifically, this paper will examine how Jacob Arminius and Clark Pinnock have dealt with this troubling dilemma. In examining the positions of these two men, we will also want to ask if contemporary Arminians, specifically Clark Pinnock[5], have drifted away from their historical moorings? In other words, is Pinnock’s Arminianism compatible with that of Arminius’[6] theology concerning the sovereignty of God and the will of man? 

            Both Arminius and Pinnock experienced a theological odyssey from the Calvinistic position that championed the sovereignty of God to a version of theology which gives greater credence to human autonomy. For varying reasons, both men retreated from Calvinism and adopted positions which they claim better fit the biblical testimony,[7] positions which they understand as necessary if responsible moral decisions are truly going to be possible. In this sense, even from a Calvinistic perspective, we can appreciate the motivation that drove these men to attempt to resolve this perennial debate. Whether their conclusions are correct is a matter of considerable debate.

We can begin to ascertain Arminius’ position on the sovereignty of God and the will of man by first reviewing his view on predestination. The order of the eternal decrees reflects differences on God’s ultimate goal in predestination and on the specific objects of predestination. While he documents twenty objections to supralapsarianism,[8]all of which ultimately point to God as the author of sin, our time is best served by looking directly at Arminius’ claims concerning the article of Predestination:

I.                    The First absolute decree of God concerning the salvation of sinful man, is that by which he decreed to appoint his Son, Jesus Christ, for a Mediator, Redeemer, Savior, Priest and King, who might destroy sin by his own death, might by his own obedience obtain the salvation which had been lost, and might communicate it by his own virtue.

II.                 The second precise and absolute decree of God, is that in which he decreed to receive into favor those who repent and believe, and, in Christ, for His sake and through him, to effect the salvation of such penitents and believers as persevered to the end; but to leave in sin, and under wrath, all impenitent persons and unbelievers, and to damn them as aliens from Christ.

III.               The third divine decree is that by which God decreed to administer in a sufficient and efficacious manner the means which were necessary for repentance and faith; and to have such administration instituted (1.) according to the Divine Wisdom, by which God knows what is proper and becoming both to his mercy and his severity, and (2.) according to Divine Justice, by which he prepared to adopt whatever his wisdom may prescribe and put it in execution.

IV.              To these succeeds the fourth decree, by which God decreed to save and damn certain individuals who would, through his preventing grace, believe, and, through his subsequent grace would persevere, according to the before described administration of those means which are suitable and proper for conversion and faith; and, by which foreknowledge, he likewise knew those who would not believe and persevere.[9] 

 

Contained in these statements on predestination we have the basis through which we can begin to understand Arminius’ view on the sovereignty of God and the will of man. Arminius rejects the supralapsarian predestination in favor of infralapsarian predestination. The significance of this is that according to Arminius, predestination targeted created and fallen humanity, not uncreated unfallen humanity. This allows him to avoid the uncomfortable position that God caused the Fall. In the second proposition we find Arminius’ ordering of predestination, namely, God predestines whom he first foresees to repent and believe. Or in the case of impenitent persons and/or unbelievers, predestination is seen as subsequent to rejection. Thus, Arminius rejected the Augustinian/Calvinistic idea of unconditional election. Indeed, according to Arminius, election is profoundly conditioned upon faith. This was an important distinction for Arminius for it, in his estimation, helped resolve the repulsive conclusion that God was the author of sin. Within the third decree we find another important concept for Arminius, namely, the universal availability of sufficient grace which made repentance and faith possible for all. Arminius fervently believed that this grace was necessary if anyone was going to be able to come to salvation. From the above, we can begin to see how Arminius’ view of predestination reflects and/or signals his view on the sovereignty of God and the will of man. 

Arminius asserts that the providence of God and the free will of man not only have a close affinity to predestination, but are in fact quite dependent upon it.[10] The subtle differences between God’s providence and his sovereignty are essentially dissolved by Arminius’ description of providence. It is interesting to observe the echoes of Calvin when we read Arminius’ description of providence:

In this definition of Divine Providence, I by no means deprive it of any particle of those properties which agree with it or belong to it; but I declare that it preserves, regulates, governs and directs all things, and that nothing in the world happens fortuitously or by chance. Beside this, I place in subjection to Divine Providence both the free will and even the actions of a rational creature, so that nothing can be done in opposition to it . . . . Still further than this, I very readily grant, that even all actions whatever, concerning evil, that they can possibly be devised or invented, may be attributed to Divine Providence—employing solely one caution, “not to conclude from this concession that God is the cause of sin. . . . Man is not capable, of and by himself; either to think, to will, or to do that which is really good; but it is necessary for him to be regenerated and renewed in his intellect, affections or will, and in all his powers, by God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, that he may be qualified rightly to understand, esteem, consider, will, and perform whatever is truly good.[11]

 

While some have accused Arminius of being a Pelagian, he is in many respects far closer to Calvin, believing in the profound affects of original sin and the complete bondage of the will and its absolute inability to do any good thing apart from prevenient grace. In light of these and other sentiments, Arminius asserts that he by no means does injustice to the grace and sovereignty of God by attributing too much to man’s free will.[12] Indeed, his concession that nothing happens fortuitously or by chance is a startling concession for a theologian to make when they also maintain the notion of free will and/or human autonomy. In fact, it is for this reason that Pinnock admittedly distances himself from this aspect of Arminian thought. 

            While Arminius rejects the idea of fortuitous and/or chance events and thus acknowledging some sense of a cause and effect universe, Pinnock depreciates the role of cause, stating that

while it may be  fruitful within the ‘spectator’ language of the scientist to assume that every event has a cause and to search constantly for regularity and predictability, it is not enough to look at complex human behavior solely from that angle. . . . So when a theory comes along, whether philosophical, theological, or psychological, which endeavors to deny this intuition of freedom, it is up against a basic human self-perception that will eventually overwhelm it.[13]

 

From this somewhat amazing appreciation for human self-perception, Pinnock proceeds to dismiss the mechanistic worldview, further devaluing if not irradicating cause and effect discussions in favor of  ‘significant’ human freedom.[14]

            Despite the seeming contradiction with the above consideration, Arminius claims that people, subsequent to regeneration or renovation and thus rendered from sin, are “capable of thinking, willing, and doing that which is good, but yet not without the continued aids of Divine Grace.”[15] For Arminius, the role of grace cannot be overemphasized. Because all is by grace, Arminius emphasizes that free will is distinct from the notion of the spontaneity of the will and is better understood in the context of facultative psychology with its characteristic distinction between the faculties of the intellect and the will.[16]  Thus, it is not by coincidence that Arminius places the capability of thinking prior to willing. Arminius’ rejects spontaneity of the will because from his perspective, a “spontaneous movement is so different from one that is free, that the former may coincide with a natural and internal necessity, but the later can by no means do so. Beasts are spontaneously borne toward those things, which are good for them, by natural instinct, but no liberty can be attributed to them.[17] Of course Arminius’ distinction here might be merely semantics. If a choice or action is based on natural and/or internal necessity, then many free will advocates would argue that the choice and/or action is not truly spontaneous. Indeed, for many, perhaps most, the very idea of spontaneity excludes and type of causal relation.[18]

            As we have briefly observed, predestination for Arminius is an act by God which is subsequent to foreseen faith and election respectively. Because of God’s exhaustive knowledge of all potentialities and actualities, he elects and predestines people according to their respective free choices. Predestination for Pinnock, however, is quite different. Pinnock sees predestination in terms of

God’s setting goals for  people rather than forcing them to enact the preprogrammed decrees. God predestines us to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). That is his plan for us whether or not we choose to go down that path. God’s plan for the world and for ourselves does not suppress but rather sustains and includes the spontaneity of significant human decisions. We are co-workers with God, participating with him in what shall be hereafter. The future is not stored up on heavenly videotape, but is the realm of possibilities, many of which have yet to be decided and actualized.[19] 

 

Thus, Pinnock embraces spontaneity while Arminius rejects spontaneity, though we should again note that this might merely be semantics. Whether it is semantics or not is difficult to determine given both Arminius’ and Pinnock’s seemingly contradictory use of the term. Though he fails to provide any specific details why he embraces spontaneity, he does give so important hints. It would seem that he does so because his system of theology cannot accept a model of human history whereby God ratifies free choices and thereby constructing a system that is just as deterministic as the system he is fleeing.

I know that Wesley had opted for a doctrine of universal prevenient grace by which God enabled the spiritually dead sinner to respond to him faith. The Fourth Gospel speaks of a universal drawing action of God (John 12:32). This move allowed him to retain his belief in total depravity and still avoid the Calvinistic consequences in terms of particularists election and limited grace. But I also knew that the Bible has no developed doctrine of universal prevenient grace, however convenient it would be for us if it did. Hence, I was drawn instead to question total depravity itself as a possible ambush designed to cut off non-Augustinians at the pass. Was there any evidence that Jesus, for example,  regarded people as totally depraved? Does the Bible generally not leave us with the impression that one can progress in sin as in holiness, and that how total one’s depravity is varies from person to person and is not constant? . . . In any case, what became decisive for me was that the fact that Scripture appeals to people as those who are able and responsible to answer to God (however as we explain it) and not as those incapable of doing so, as Calvinian logic would suggest.[20]

 

For Arminius, with the intellect preceding the will,[21]  people are given the capacity to evaluate their options for either works of righteousness or works of unrighteousness, all of which brings us to a major point of contention between Arminianism and Calvinism. Arminius writes,

For the whole controversy reduces itself to the solution of this question, “is the grace of God a certain irresistible force?” That is, the controversy does not relate to those actions or operations which may be ascribed to grace, (for I acknowledge and inculcate as many of these actions or operations as any man ever did,) but it relates solely to the mode of operation, whether it be irresistible or not. With respect to which, I believe, according to the Scriptures, that many persons resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace offered.

 

For Arminius, irresistible grace precludes freedom and renders saving faith a necessity and thus, undermines the tenor of the gospel message, “believe you shall be saved.” Thus, Arminius insists that “grace is present in all men, by which their free will may be actually bent to good; but that there is in all men such a will as is flexible to either side upon accession of grace.”[22] It is at the point that a person believes that they become elected and/or saved, or disbelieves and thus seal their destiny of damnation. Thus, for Arminius, faith is not an effect of election, but rather a necessary requisite in those who are to be elected.[23] “This is the will of God, that whosoever believeth in the Son hath eternal life; he that believeth not, shall be condemned.”[24] Thus, according to Arminius, God’s grace makes salvation possible, not inevitable. This again brings us to the important basis for God’s predestination of the elect, namely, faith is said to be foreseen by God in those who are to be saved.[25] “Those persons will be saved, or they have been predestined and elected, who, God foreknew, would believe by the assistance of his preventing grace, (I add and of his accompanying grace,) and would persevere by the aid of his subsequent grace.[26] To better understand God’s foreknowledge and thus his sovereignty, we turn to a few of Arminius’ comments on the nature of God.

            It is through his arguments concerning the nature of God[27] that we gain a clear understanding of Arminius’ reverence for the sovereignty of God. Unlike Pinnock, Arminius understands God’s knowledge to be all encompassing. This knowledge is an eternal knowledge of “all things and every thing which now have, will have, have had, can have, or might hypothetically have, any kind of being.”[28] Whereas Pinnock argues that God’s sovereignty is limited, not knowing future free choices, Arminius argues that God knows all possibilities and all actuality:

He knows all possibilia, whether they are in capability (potentia) of God or of the creature; in active or passive capability; in the capability of operation, imagination, or enunciation: he knows all things that could have an existence, on any hypothesis; he knows things other than himself, whether necessary or contingent, good or bad, universal or particular, future, present or past; he knows substantial and accidental of every kind.[29]      

   

God’s exhaustive knowledge is also noted in Arminius’ Private Disputations:

God knows all things, neither by intelligible [species] representations, nor by similitude, but by his own and sole essence; with the exception of evil things, which he knows indirectly by the good things opposed to them, as privation is known [mediante habitu] by means of our having been accustomed to any thing. The mode by which God understands, is, not by composition and division, not by [discursim] gradual argumentation, but simple and infinite intuition, according to the succession of order and not of time. The succession of order, in the objects of the divine knowledge is in this manner: First. God shows himself entirely and adequately, and this understanding is his own (esse) essence or being. Secondly. He knows all possible things, in the perfection of his own essence, and, therefore, all things impossible. In the understanding of the possible things, this is the order: (1.) He knows what things can exist by his own primary and sole act. (2.) He knows what things, from the creatures, whether they will come into existence or concurrence, and permission. (3.) He knows what things he can do about the acts of the creatures [convenienter] consistently with himself or with these acts. Thirdly. He knows all entities, even according to the same order as that which we have just shown in his knowledge of all things possible.[30]

 

Thus, according to Arminius, God’s knowledge and/or understanding is, in a word, exhaustive. Pinnock, on the other hand, rejects that concept of exhaustive divine knowledge.

            Pinnock argues that the traditional notion of exhaustive knowledge is supported more by logic than by the biblical text.

Of course the Bible praises God for his detailed knowledge of what will happen and what he himself will do. But it does not teach limitless foreknowledge, because the future will include as-yet-undecided human choices and as-yet-unselected divine responses to them. The God of the Bible displays an openness to the future that the traditional view of omniscience simply cannot accommodate.[31]

 

It is from this perspective that Pinnock calls for “free will” theism, a doctrine that Pinnock suggests “treads the middle path between classical theism, which exaggerates God’s transcendence of the world, and process theism, which presses for radical immanence.”[32] While Pinnock and company make efforts to deny that their new theological ‘paradigm’ expressed in the open view of God differs from process theology, their relative success or failure is up for debate.[33] The point to emphasize here is that Pinnock is calling for a system that sees God not as the God of Calvinists who determined in eternity past the unfolding drama of human history, but rather a God who participates with humanity in determining how the future will unfold. Pinnock argues that it is a distortion of biblical truth to suggest that God is incapable of being affected by anything outside himself.

We must reject the Greek model of immutability. While God is unchangeable in essence and character, he is changeable in his knowledge and actions. A God immutable in every sense cannot be the God of revelation, responding dynamically to every fresh situation. If he were immutable in the Platonic sense, the biblical picture of an active God would be in ruins. Of course God is love; this can never change. But his love in action is continually changing in relation to people. We praise God for his wonderful deeds which he does on our behalf. His ability to change does not mean that God is fickle or capricious. It simply means that God is able to operate within a changing history, responding to everything that happens. Praise God for his changing unchangeability.[34]

 

A point of theology that causes some Calvinists to flinch, namely, the efficacy of prayer further augments this argument. Pinnock argues that God’s open plan for our lives is truly open, and prayer can be an important vehicle to sculpt our futures. Pinnock charges that “if you really believe that prayer changes things, my whole position is established. If you do not believe it does, you are far from biblical religion.”[35]

 

Summary and Conclusion

            In this brief examination of the views of Arminius and Pinnock on the sovereignty of God and the will of man, we have observed that Arminius’ position is largely born out of his views on predestination. Given God’s exhaustive knowledge of all things possible, probable, actual, and so on, we learn that Arminius understands God’s infinite knowledge to foresee who will and who will not come to salvation by faith. Furthermore, the coming to salvation by faith, while assisted by the grace of God, is ultimately dependent upon the free will of man. In other words, God’s grace is not irresistible. In light of God’s foreknowledge of how people will or will not respond in faith, he elects them and predestines them unto salvation and/or damnation. 

            According to Pinnock, predestination suggests something entirely different. Rather than a ratification of foreseen faith, Pinnock argues that predestination is God’s setting of goals for mankind. Predestination in this sense is an offer by God to man to enter into a loving and personal relationship that enjoys a very real divine/human interaction that allows for the future to be co-created. While both Arminius and Pinnock agree that grace is not irresistible, Pinnock rejects the Arminian concept of foreknowledge which, according to his perspective, necessarily implies that God’s knowledge is all encompassing and thus determinative. In other words, Pinnock rejects Arminian foreknowledge because it is as deterministic as Calvinism, a position to which he expresses great repugnance. Thus, Pinnock is diametrically opposed to Arminius’ assertion that God’s knowledge is exhaustive. According to Pinnock, God’s knowledge is limited in the sense that future free choices are not within the realm of knowability. In other words, they are contingent and thus without certainty and simply are not discernible.

            With regard to whether Pinnock can rightly be called an Arminian, even in a broader sense of the term, is somewhat questionable. Ultimately it would depend on what one considers to be the essential features of Arminianism, a determination that would be difficult to demonstrate with wide spread approval. On the other hand, it can be conclusively demonstrated that Pinnock’s Arminianism is quite different from that of Arminius himself. Of course Pinnock openly admits that he has strayed from many of the common Arminian positions. The point is more of a matter of nomenclature than anything and thus it would seem that Pinnock should probably no longer refer to himself as an Arminian, but rather a modified process theologian and/or a free will theist. 

            While both views presented in this paper are commendable in the sense that they are largely motivated out of a desire to maintain human responsibility, it seems rather odd that Pinnock lacks any dialogue with the works of Luther, Calvin and/or Edwards. It seems that scholarship should always be willing to interact with the writings, particularly the strongest of them, which call into question our personal conclusions. Through this interaction, personal views can be either be strengthened, or their weaknesses can be made known and thus be dealt with responsibly. In light of Pinnock’s lack of dialogue with contrasting views, we might also want to question Pinnock’s triumphal dogmatism. It just might be that Calvinism, with its views of the sovereignty of God and the will of man, is not on its way out the door of contemporary Christian thought.

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

 

Basinger, David and Randall Basinger, ed. Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of

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Guelzo, Allen C.  Edwards on the Will: A Century of American Theological Debate.

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Jewett, Paul K.  Election and Predestination. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing

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Muller, Richard A. God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius:

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Pinnock, Clark H.  Tracking the Maze: Finding our Way Through Modern Theology

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________. Reason Enough: A Case for the Christian Faith. Downers Grove, IL:

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Pinnock, Clark H. ed. The Grace of God, The Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism.

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________. Grace Unlimited. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship Inc., 1975.

 

Pinnock, Clark H., Richard Rice, John Sanders, William Hasker and David Basinger. The

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Pinnock, Clark H. and Robert C. Brow. Unbound Love: A Good News Theology for the

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Schreiner, Thomas R. and Bruce A. Ware editors. The Grace of God, the Bondage of the

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Shedd, William G.T.  Dogmatic Theology. Volumes 1 and 2, Edinburgh: T&T Clark,

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PERIODICALS

 

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Olson, Roger, Douglas Kelly, Timothy George, and Alister E. McGrath. Has God Been

Held Hostage by Philosophy?: 4 Forum on free-will theism, a new paradigm for understanding God. Christianity Today 39 (1995): 30-34.

 

Pinnock, Clark H. God’s Sovereignty in Today’s World.” Theology Today 55 (1996): 15-

21.

 

Price, Robert M. “Clark H. Pinnock: Conservative and Contemporary.” Evangelical

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Rakestraw, Robert V. “Clark H. Pinnock: A Theological Odyssey.” Christian Scholars

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