Charge: Arminianism de-personalizes Election
Calvinist Complaints: Arminianism de-personalizes Election
Calvinist, James White, writes: “I don’t know why more intelligent, well-read Arminians seem to see this, but in essence, you de-personalize the Gospel. What do I mean by that? ... From the Arminian perspective, this elect group is just a nameless, faceless group that God has said, ‘Well if you get into this group, then these things will be yours, but it’s up to you whether you get in, and it’s up to you whether you stay in.’ So keep that in mind as you think of these words. Who can really say if God is for us, who is against us? [Only those people who can work-up the faith to stay in this group]. If you remain faithful, then you’re in this group, but you’ve gotta work that up. That’s you, faith can’t be a divine gift, it’s not the work of the Holy Spirit, it’s gotta come out of you, you see. And so He did not spare His own Son for a nameless faceless group that we have proper grounds for asking how God can know from eternity past who’s going to be in it, if it’s all up to man? I mean think about it, if God can really know what man is going to do is man really free? That’s why the Open Theists go into the direction they do. He did not spare His own Son but delivered Him over for us all. Well I thought He was delivered over for every single human being, how is there any difference, from the Arminian perspective? ‘Who will bring a charge against God’s elect?’ How do you bring a charge against nameless faceless people?” (Arminianism: It Robs the Gospel of its Personal Nature, emphasis mine)
It seems that Calvinist, James White, takes a non-Arminian concept of foreknowledge, in order to prove that Arminianism teaches a de-personalized election.
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians writes: “White’s mind-numbing equation of corporate election in Christ, with a subversion of God’s personal communion with redeemed individuals, is just dumb. God’s ability to elect folks corporately doesn’t preclude a personal component to covenantal fellowship with God. This is depressingly obvious from even the Old Testament. In most of the Old Testament, God deals with the corporate, ethnic nation of Israel, but the individual component is not subsumed by these corporate dealings. The same is true of the New Testament. White intentionally skews the Arminian outlook on corporate election by creating a false dichotomy between the corporate and individual aspects. For a guy who pontificates about Romans 8-11 on such a regular basis, you'd think that he’d know this.” (SEA)
White asks how God can know the future if He does not determine it? But this is the same argument as the Open Theists. Arminians, therefore, have a view of divine foreknowledge which exceeds the limits of what Calvinists and Open Theists permit. God decreed the corporate salvation of those in Christ, and foreknew each individual by name. So where is the alleged, de-personalization?
