Dissed by Roger Olson
Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 07:20PM 
A number of you have asked me about my thoughts on Roger Olson's new book, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (IVP). I am one of those mean-spirited Calvinists singled out by Olson for supposedly misrepresenting Arminianism and Arminians. I have not read Olson's book yet, but will certainly get around to it, since it is an important occasion when a noted Arminian theologian, like Olson, enters into direct debate with Reformed theology and its advocates.
According to Dr. Olson, in an article I wrote on Arminianism for Modern Reformation back in 1992 (Vol. 1), I am way over the top when I take Arminianism to task for departing from the evangel, when I state that in Arminianism, God's grace makes people savable, but does not actually save them. Am I wrong, or is that not what Arminians themselves actually teach? (See, for example, the writings of John Miley, who states that Arminians teach a "genuine conditionality of salvation in accord with the synergism of the truest Arminianism," Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, p. 169).
Throughout my essay, I quote from B. B. Warfield's "Review" of the just quoted Methodist theologian John Miley's Systematic Theology. As Warfield was supposedly unfair to Miley (complains Olson), I am also being unfair to Arminians when I make comments to the effect that human freedom is fundamental to Arminianism (Olson, Arminian Theology, p. 98). Olson then disses me in a footnote on page 40 of his book by writing, "I wonder whether the author [Riddlebarger] ever read Miley or only B. B. Warfield his critic."
I can assure Dr. Olson that I've read Miley's Systematic Theology several times (with great appreciation for Miley's unabashed commitment to the Arminian system and all its consequences). In fact, my comment about human freedom being the Arminian fundamentum, is a quote from the very same John Miley, who, supposedly, I did not actually read.
When Olson takes B. B. Warfield to task for misrepresenting Miley and Arminians, I am tempted to take up the pen in Warfield's defense, since I am well-familiar with Warfield's critique of Miley (as I am with Miley himself). I can tell you that Warfield is anything but mean-spirited to John Miley. In fact, Warfield is most gracious and deferential to Miley, as one scholar reviews the work of another. Dr. Olson could learn much from Warfield's graciousness, as could we all.
However, Gary Johnson, pastor of Church of the Redeemer in Mesa, AZ, beat me to the punch. Phil Johnson has posted the first of Gary Johnson's three part review of Olson's book over at Pyromanics (Click here: Pyromaniacs: Calvinists in the Hands of an Angry Arminian). I highly recommend that you check this out. Gary Johnson does a stellar of job of defending Warfield, while hoisting Olson on his own petard. It is patently clear to anyone who has read Warfield's "Review" that Warfield is far more charitable to Miley, than Olson is to Warfield.
Don't you just love it when those who complain about "mean-spirited" Calvinists, behave in such a manner? Olson does not like Calvinism. That's fine. But to be so mean-spirited when complaining about people being "mean-spirited," empties Olson's argument of most of its punch. Calvinists have no excuse for being mean. But Calvinists often get back far worse than they dish out. Olson's treatment of Warfield is a prime example.
Reader Comments (36)
Olson makes a pretty strong case that you're wrong by citing Arminius and those after him. You'll have to read it to see, but he thinks that your argument is a distortion and a myth of the Arminian position, and your argument is one of the many myths he's trying to debunk.
Gary Johnson's essay seems to me to miss Olson's point. Olson is taking Warfield to task for misrepresenting the Arminian position. So when Johnson says, "Olson deeply resents Warfield connecting the dots"--he's right, becuase Olson think that those dots don't exist in the way Warfield lays them out. He spends the book attempting to prove it.
I am not trying to pick yet another version of this fight, but just thinking aloud here. Shouldn’t the fact that we are right be enough? Does clear orthodoxy need our help? can’t it stand on its own? I always wonder about turning things into, well, I will refrain from the term I normally use, but “contests” about, not whose right, but who’s better somehow? Or am I being too naïve about it? maybe I am and I am falling into the trap of avoiding fight because it can so often go bad. I don’t know. I guess I know what I believe and find little need to convince others all the time, since they are so often as entrenched as I am. Maybe it’s my confessional instincts over against an evangelical one that are more inclined to nurture than to battle. It’s not that battle is bad, but given the choice between nurture and battle I choose nurture and find that more confessional, while battle is more an ethic of evangelical.
1) As Kim rightly points out, there is indeed irony in the way Arminians have attacked Calvinism. And the irony is a tad amusing!
2) No one likes an unfair caricature of their position. It's clearly true that Calvinists and Arminians agree on many doctrinal points.
3) Nevertheless, in the end: (a) either man is utterly unable even to believe on Christ for justification, or he is not; (b) either God unconditionally elects those whom He freely chooses for salvation, or He does not; (c) either Jesus died to actually save those for whom He sacrificed Himself, or He did not; (d) either the elect will invariably and inevitably and unfailing be drawn to Christ so as to come to and believe in Him, or they will not; and (e) either all those who are justified shall persevere to the end, or they shall not. I think the Bible is pretty clear on these issues.
4) I have no fear of Olson's book, and eagerly await a response to it from someone in the Reformed community.
You found that shift key. I'm proud of you. ;)
I can't understand why Arminians need to be debated. It seems to me the reformers put this issue to rest a long time ago, and if any of these Arminians cared to weigh the arguments of Calvinism, they could just read the documents from 400 years ago. This Olson guy is trying to take Warfield to task over this? Please. Olson can't even hold a candle to him. It's not that a debate needs to be held regarding this issue, it's just that Arminians want to remain Arminians.
Zrim's Spurgeon quote is useful: "Calivinism is a nickname for biblical Christianity".
I think Calvinists need to stop trying to dignify Arminians with a response. Let them just fade into the background noise.
Does Olsen admit that the determining factor in salvation is the free will of man? Does Olsen claim a universal prevenient grace that has offset the noetic effects of the Fall such that all are enabled to turn to Christ if they simply will?
Sometimes it takes critics to "connect the dots" and force pointed dialog to address the implicit issues. Go Warfield!
Go Kim!
you express one of my own tensions. i hate even giving the other side the time of day. it's like debating whether the bible is true or if God exists or if the sky is blue or if 2 + 2 *really* equals four. yet i know it has to be done at some level. it also gives the impression that "the 5 points" are the extent of good reformed confessionalism, that once those are settled (if ever) all would be well. but it's just one piece of the pie, so to speak. also, it seems like these debates always stay at some theoretical level and actual practices are ignored. i have debated this issue with arminian relatives. some like to think themselves calvinists for some reason, but then act and speak otherwise like fully persuaded ariminians. i will say to them, "oh, so you have a real problem with sinner's prayers, rededications, altar calls, invitations, etc." i get befuddled looks that say "of course not." so they sign the dotted calvinist line but it seems ot make no difference in their perception of actual practices.
zrim
To be raised Arminian meant never knowing the assurance of forgiveness of sins; it meant having law piled upon law, with even the gospel presented with conditions (your subsequent actions) and so made into a new law; and, it meant the possibility of becoming so frustrated with your sinfulness and the seeming inadequacy of the gospel that you ended up either hating God (as Luther did) or chucking it all (as many of my friends did).
I could quote you chapter & section or q. & a. from any of those sytematicians, or I could deliniate how far have fallen and how even more inconsistent have become the "Arminians" of today. But instead, to paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien's clever description of Wormtongue by Gandulf in The Lord of the Rings, let me say that Arminianism is a snake. You cannot in safety take it with you, but neither is it prudent to leave it behind.
Thanks be to God for the jewels that are the doctrines of grace (with a right balance of law and gospel), presented to us in Holy Scripture and brought out so clearly to light by the Reformers and those who came after them.
"Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). It is worth the candle!
BTW, for all you Arminian-hunting enthusiasts out there,
check out this from the Sacred Sandwich website:
http://sacredsandwich.com/photo20.htm
This is more than just about free will and prevenient grace. This really does extend to issues (and disagreements) that have been alive and well in Calvinistic circles for hundreds of years now. It has to do with the free offer of the Gospel, the love of God for all men, and Jehovah's sincere desire to save all men (affirmed by many Calvinists, but not by others). It has to do with the nature of the atonement and whether there was a limited imputation of sin to Christ or whether an unlimited.
It certainly does have to do with what Arminians have always understood about prevenient grace. That's imporant because many Calvinists today act as though Arminianism teaches that the fall has not rendered man depraved and sinful in all of his faculties. In other words, Neo-Calvnists of the Calvinistic Revival of the late 20th century equivocates between real Arminianism and Pelagianism, calling the latter by the moniker of the former.
Oh, yes, there are real misrepresentations and overzealous representations. Olson is right to point them out. He does need an answer and not just a casual brush-off. Pointing him to the Canons of Dordt won't answer what he's saying. That's just the lazy Calvinist's answer. The real issue is that Calvinism itself can and often is imbalanced in the way it not only presents other people's views, but the way it presents Scripture's.
Ah, but this isn't exactly what he does. He actually writes off some of them by calling them "Arminians of the head," so his citations are highly selective.
With respect to Warfield, Warfield writes in the 19th century with Miley as his foil. He connects the same dots that Miley connects. In fact, the dots that Olson wishes to deny are dots that are already connected by history. Where you find liberals, you find Arminians. Where you find Socinians, you find Arminians. Why? Because Arminianism contains within in the metaphysical machinery for Unitarianism. Once you place election and regeneration outside a chain effected by grace, you wind up with only the cross in view. Ergo, one, not 3 Persons of the Trinity are in view. That's functional Unitarianism. It isn't without reason that the Free Will Baptists nearly died out because of Socinianism, which soon follows Unitarianism. The point here is simply this: we "connect the dots" for particular reasons, which Olson might want to deny all he wants, but when he is denying this while comporting with the likes of Clark Pinnock, his denials come across as vain at best.
Ah, but this of course, is generally rendered by Calvinists in response to the likes of Dave Hunt and Elmer Towns and the anti-Calvinist fundamentalists in the SBC and the IFBx churches, so you can't fault them for responding to a particular foil to the exclusion of others. Arminianism is quite varigated. Towns, for example, says that the ability to believe is a form of "common grace." Now that means he thinks this is an ability granted by design, and I've heard more than one Baptist preacher say that man's will is not so unable to believe that he requires UPG (universal prevenient grace), so you can't very well sit back and call this characterisation of Arminianism a "straw man" when this is what we are using as our foil. This isn't equivocation; this is just contextualized response. There's a difference.
Speaking for myself, I do differentiate between Arminianism that affirms UPG and that which does not. My apologetic for interacting with a Wesleyan Arminian is not the same as for a Baptist fundamentalist. Wesleyan Arminianism and Old Arminianism are different in several ways, and Baptist fundamentalist Arminianism has a different character as well. At the same time, there are certain generic characteristics. Packer was correct in referring to "Arminianisms."
What Olsen seems to do is write off the Arminians he calls "head Arminians" and then classifies himself and those that agree with his beliefs "heart Arminians" and then classifies these as "legitmate," which, of course, makes the others to whom we have responded in the past illegitmate expressions. This, in turn, allows him to say that we are dealing with straw men. I find that approach, how shall we say, disingenuous.
I'm a bit surprised by your reaction, I mean you haven't even read the book yet. One writer suggest that some reformed reviewers will present Olson as an acidic bully so as to excuse the reformed fanclub from any danger of actually reading the book and finding out that a good bit of what is routinely bantered about among Calvinists is inaccurate, often embarrassingly so. “Olson is a bitter Arminian attacking Calvinists” will be a line soon appearing on a blog near you. Is this true?
"Even one Calvinist wrote, when you read that AT is an angry, anti-Calvinist diatribe, that’s as untrue and as misrepresentative of the book as it’s possible to be. Get it and READ IT FOR YOURSELF."
I'll leave with this, which is from Scripture too. Would that we would be passionate in applying it as we are about defending one from our own camp.
Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. 22 Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 But REFUSE foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce QUARRELS(obviously not a good thing). 24 The Lord's bond-servant MUST NOT be quarrelsome, but be KIND to all, able to teach, PATIENT WHEN WRONGED, 25 with GENTLENESS correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth(Is this the underlying motivation for critique or responding to the "opposition"?), 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
well, walt, looks like nobody picked up on what my point was except for you...imagine that!
the tension between not wanting to encourage an alreadyy raging anti- and a-intellectualism and not wanting to reduce the faith to mere argument continues.
i think it should bother us that arminians can indeed "win the argument" when a calvinist loses it. what happens when they do? per the intellectual trap we must become arminians. but what naturally arises from scripture is a sense of nuture, not battle. paul (as well as the rest of the biblical authors)speaks to those who are already persuaded and seeks to nurture that faith. this is not to diminish wholesale argument and battle, but to say that nurture is certainly favored in the biblical tone and tenor over against winning arguments.
btw, i would apply this sort of thinking to how we regard something like islam as well there are plenty of erros in the world but we can't solve them all but should rather be about the nurture of the faithful. let muslims and arminians be what they are. hopefully you can see that i am not, in point of fact, one that 'defends islam' as if i think it is valid. i put it and something like arminianism in the same category as "stuff that has nothing to do with th etrue faith so let it go."
zrim
Maybe you're right. I waffle back and forth between whether or not it's useful to understand every argument against Christianity (including Islam) or whether it's better to just give everybody the Gospel in the same way. Salvation is a supernatural work either way, isn't it?
exactly, walt, exactly. you are not alone in your waffling! this corner of the conversation intrigues me as i am still working out what i have come to understand as an evangelical ethic over against a more confessional one. on th eone hand i can see the value in "battle." after all, are we not called to "subject every thought and make it captive to Christ"? can good, honest protestants who find their identity in the reformation, who owe so much to battle, say otherwise? however, like i said above, it sure seems to me that the tone and tenor of scripture is concerned with the nurture of faith rather than the battle against its enemies.
"...whether it's better to just give everybody the Gospel in the same way. Salvation is a supernatural work either way, isn't it?"
exactly. i really, really stop and wonder about things like "ministries to muslims," as if there is a way to witness to muslims that is different than to secularists. i appreciate that they are two different groups, don't get me wrong. and i don't mean to diminish their realities...but, come on. the truth is the truth is the truth, right? do we really think we can prove someone into conversion? are there not problems with that? i mean, even when an ariminian gives a great presentation of his beliefs, even better than someone who is calvinists (and it has happened, believe it or not) i remain unpersuaded! am i being hypocritical because i don't embrace his view? perhaps...if i accept the intellectualism underneath such presumptions. but that is no answer. th efaith, it seems to me, is about more than our intellect. and i say that as one who affirms without question that we live in a very anti-intellectual time and laments it. but its antedote isn't mere intellectualism. somehow i think we all know that, which makes me embrace all the closer what i am seeing as a confessional ethic over against an evangelical one.
for what it's worth,
zrim
forgot i wanted to add...your comment here is useful also because i wonder about the professionalization of evangelism, apologetics and polemics. i don't take well to the idea that there's a gospel tailored for everyone--a sort of have it your way approach. it is what it is and transcends whatever devotions a particular unbeliever has. when i engage unbelievers i tend not to care what background they have, as important as it is at the same time. i don't know, good food for thought here.
zrim
Don't worry about Roger Olsen, it seems like everytime he tries to summarize the teachings of Calvinists, he simple builds a very flimsy straw-man that doesn't even represent what I or any other Calvinist I know believes.
Scot McKnight, an Evangelical Arminian NT scholar, has posted 9 Arminian Myths on his blog. He takes these myths straight out of Olsen's book. If your interested in reading his posts, here is the link:
http://www.jesuscreed.org/?cat=17
I also posted some responses to McKnight's posts, you can find them here:
http://apemantusforum.blogspot.com/2006/10/understanding-arminianism-3.html
http://apemantusforum.blogspot.com/2006/10/understanding-arminianism-2.html
http://apemantusforum.blogspot.com/2006/09/understanding-arminianism_26.html
Chris Coleman
Dr. Jerry Vines big name Southern Baptist preacher for years recently preached sermon entitled something like this:
Dangers in the Southern Baptist Convention:
"Charismatics, Calvinists, and Drunkards".
I heard clips of it on the internet.
Wish I could just laugh it off, but this reveals the 'spirit' of debate today regarding the truth of God's amazing grace that saves lost sinners.