Dan Chapa

John D. Wagner assembled inputs from a wide ranges of authors to put together Grace for All: The Arminian Dynamics of Salvation .   The book starts off with Roger Olson defending Arminianism from the charge of being “man-centered”.   Olson notes that Richard Watson affirmed God could have prevented the fall and that James Arminius only affirmed free will to defend God's righteousness. Olson says that the doctrine of divine concurrence with secondary causes is the primary way of defending God's sovereignty in Arminianism. The book moves on to Vernon Grounds, whose mystical style is not my cup of tea.   He focuses on the personal nature of grace.  Next comes Glen Shellrude.   He makes Calvinists pay full price for determinism by surveying a variety of biblical texts through the lens of determinism. Shellrude doesn't take on compatibilism directly; he just focuses on the awkward results of determinism.  He ends by saying atheism makes more sense than Calvinism.

I'm going to make two contentions in this post.  First, there's a necessary connection between true faith and salvation.1  This is Paul's point.  Second, there is a necessary connection between true faith and works.  This is James' point.  The council of Trent denies both of these claims by saying people can have true faith through which they are put into a state of grace and lose their state of grace through mortal sin, while remaining true believers.  This is because Trent denied "sola fide" - charity must be added to faith.     The Necessary Connection between True Faith and Salvation Christ promised that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.  In John 6:35, Christ says “he that believes on me shall never thirst at any time.” Christ uses what Dan Wallace calls an Empathic negation”, which denies not only the occurrence but the possibility of any uncertainty about the occurrence.2   But Trent says true believers sometime perish. 

Christ promised that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.  In John 10:28, He puts it in such strong terms, it's as if Christ is jumping up and down and shouting "THEY WILL NEVER EVER EVER PERISH".1 The biggest problem I have with Catholicism is their doctrine that true believers sometimes perish and do not have eternal life. I don't know why this problem doesn't receive that much attention from Protestants.  Perhaps it's because many Protestants teach salvation cannot be lost.  Calvin 's response to the Catholic teaching on unformed faith was to insist that faith cannot be separated from love.2   True enough, but Luther's reaction was stronger: "In this manner they completely transfer justification from faith and attribute it solely to love". 3  Could the difference in these responses be due to Calvin's saying temporary faith is false faith whereas Luther said temporary faith is true faith? Catholics teach b