Display of Arminianism By John Owen
(Summary in modern English)
We now come to the root cause of all the controversies by which the Arminians and their supporters have troubled the church of Christ.
The doctrine of God’s eternal predestination is the fountain from which all spiritual blessings flow. It is the source of every effect of God's love that comes to us through Christ. Therefore, the chief effort of all who promote human self-sufficiency has been to overthrow this foundation of salvation.
Why? Because they want to preserve for themselves some independent power to do good, to distinguish themselves from others, and ultimately to obtain eternal happiness without being entirely dependent on God's sovereign grace.
This is the first step in their larger project. Their second goal is to build a tower whose foundation is human free will and effort, from which they imagine they can climb into heaven.
Yet they knew that openly abolishing predestination altogether would never succeed among those who profess faith in the gospel. Therefore, they left the name in place while removing the reality. They kept the word "predestination" but substituted something entirely different in its place.
They have exchanged Rachel for Leah; they have embraced a shadow instead of the substance.
Since many learned theologians have already explained the true doctrine and answered the common objections against it, I will briefly state it according to Scripture and according to the Seventeenth Article of the Church of England. My primary purpose is to show how the Arminians oppose and overthrow it at every point.
Predestination is a particular aspect of God's providence concerning His creatures.
It differs from providence in two ways.
God's providence concerns all created things.
Predestination concerns only rational creatures—angels and men.
Providence directs all creatures toward their appointed ends.
Predestination directs rational creatures toward a supernatural end—eternal blessedness for the glory of God.
Thus, predestination may be described as God's eternal counsel concerning the final and supernatural destiny of His rational creatures, established for the praise of His glory.
But even this definition requires further restriction.
Its objects are rational creatures, namely angels and men. Here we speak only of men.
Its end may be either eternal happiness or eternal misery. Here we speak only of the former.
Thus we are considering God's decree by which He appoints certain men to everlasting life.
In this sense, predestination and election are essentially the same thing.
Some theologians distinguish election as God's decree of the end and predestination as His decree of the means leading to that end. Yet Scripture does not clearly maintain such a distinction.
Scripture presents election as the gracious and unchangeable decree of God by which, before the foundation of the world, He chose certain people according to His own good pleasure.
He determined:
to deliver them from sin and misery,
to grant them faith and grace,
to give them to Christ,
to bring them to eternal blessedness,
all for the praise of His glorious grace.
The Church of England expresses this truth well:
"Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby before the foundations of the world were laid, He hath constantly decreed by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation."
I will now explain each part of this doctrine and show how the Arminians overthrow it.
The article teaches, and Scripture confirms, that election took place before the world began.
God chose us before we were born.
Indeed, He chose us before we had done either good or evil.
Scripture declares:
"He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world" (Ephesians 1:4).
"The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil..." (Romans 9:11).
Grace was given to us in Christ "before the world began" (2 Timothy 1:9).
If election occurred before we existed, then nothing in us could have caused it.
A cause must exist before its effect.
But all our faith, obedience, holiness, and works exist in time. Therefore, none of them can be the cause of an eternal decree.
Election must therefore rest solely upon God's will and good pleasure.
This truth destroys the Arminian system.
Consequently, the Arminians deny that election is eternal in the biblical sense.
They claim that complete election belongs only to a person who is dying and has completed a life of faith and obedience.
In effect, they transform election into nothing more than God's approval of human conduct.
Instead of election being the source of salvation, it becomes God's recognition that someone has already qualified himself.
This makes election no different from the judgment of a man who waits to see what will happen before making a decision.
But Scripture presents election as the fountain of all God's saving love toward us in Christ.
The Arminian doctrine offers no comfort because it gives no one any assurance while he lives.
It says, in effect:
God will determine to save you only after He sees that you have persevered.
This is not the biblical doctrine of election.
The article teaches that God's decree is constant and unchangeable.
Scripture speaks of:
one purpose,
one decree,
one counsel,
one eternal determination concerning the salvation of God's people.
"The foundation of God standeth sure" (2 Timothy 2:19).
"His gifts and calling are without repentance" (Romans 11:29).
The Arminians answer by inventing endless distinctions:
complete election,
incomplete election,
revocable election,
irrevocable election,
temporary election,
final election,
and many more.
None of these distinctions appear in Scripture.
According to them, a believer may be elected today and not elected tomorrow.
Election continues only so long as faith continues.
If faith ceases, election ceases.
Thus God's eternal decree becomes something fluctuating and uncertain.
But Scripture teaches the opposite.
The elect cannot finally be deceived.
No one can snatch Christ's sheep from His hand.
God's purpose stands firm.
Moreover, reason itself tells us that God's eternal acts cannot be incomplete or reversible.
Such instability belongs to creatures, not to God.
Yet the Arminians will accept any absurdity rather than surrender their belief that the decisive cause of salvation lies within man.
The article plainly teaches that God chooses certain individuals out of mankind.
Scripture repeatedly speaks this way:
a "few" are chosen,
a remnant according to election,
those known by God,
those ordained to eternal life,
those written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
These expressions refer to definite persons.
God's elect are not merely a number. They are specific individuals.
The very idea of election requires this.
An election with no elected persons is meaningless.
A choice that chooses no one is not a choice.
A decree to save men in general without determining who those men are is no decree at all.
Yet the Arminians deny that election applies to particular individuals as individuals.
Instead, God merely determines to save whoever believes.
According to them, God chooses no specific person until He foresees that person's faith.
Thus Peter differs from Judas only because Peter uses his abilities better.
And since those qualifications can be lost, election itself can disappear.
But Scripture teaches that God's elect are given to Christ by the Father.
Christ knows them by name.
He lays down His life for them.
They were His before they believed.
They were given to Christ before they came to Him.
The Arminian system turns Christ into a king who may never have subjects and a head who may never have a body.
The article teaches that the only cause of election is God's own counsel and will.
Nothing in us moved God to choose us.
Before election, all men stood in the same condition.
All were fallen.
All were guilty.
All deserved condemnation.
The difference between Jacob and Esau was not found in themselves.
It was found solely in God's free grace.
God chose Jacob and passed over Esau before either had done good or evil.
Yet the Arminians insist that faith precedes election.
They openly declare that faith comes before election and is not its fruit.
Indeed, they make faith and obedience the very cause of election.
God chooses people, they say, because He foresees their faith, righteousness, and perseverance.
Thus election becomes God's reward for foreseen virtue.
The result is that good works become the cause of election.
This doctrine is scarcely distinguishable from Pelagianism.
Christ Himself gives the true explanation:
"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight."
Why is the gospel revealed to some and hidden from others?
Because it pleased God.
Why does God give His kingdom to His people?
Because it is His good pleasure.
Why did God love Israel?
Not because they were greater than others.
But because He loved them.
Why was Jacob loved and Esau rejected?
Because God's purpose according to election might stand.
Everywhere Scripture traces election back to:
God's purpose,
God's will,
God's love,
God's mercy.
Never does Scripture make election depend on foreseen faith or obedience.
Faith and obedience always appear as fruits of election, never as causes.
Several conclusions follow.
If final perseverance is the cause of election, then no one can be elected in this life.
Yet Scripture repeatedly speaks of living believers as elect.
Before God's grace reaches us, we are:
dead in sin,
children of wrath,
enemies of God.
Nothing in such a condition can deserve election.
Election is eternal.
Faith and obedience are temporal.
What exists in time cannot be the cause of what was established before time.
If election depends on foreseen faith, then God's choice depends ultimately on man rather than God.
This destroys divine sovereignty.
God foresees faith only because He intends to give it.
Faith is His gift.
Therefore He cannot choose us because He foresees a gift He Himself has already determined to bestow.
Most importantly, the effects of election cannot be the causes of election.
Faith, repentance, holiness, and obedience all flow from election.
They do not produce it.
God chose us, says Paul, not because we were holy, but so that we would become holy (Ephesians 1:4).
We are predestined to adoption.
We are called because we were predestined.
We believe because we were ordained to eternal life.
As Augustine wisely said:
Christ did not choose us because we chose Him. He chose us so that we would choose Him.
Our faith is the result of God's election, not the reason for it.
The Arminian doctrine reverses the entire biblical order.
Scripture teaches:
God elects.
God calls.
God grants faith.
God justifies.
God sanctifies.
God glorifies.
The Arminians teach:
Man believes.
Man perseveres.
God then elects him.
Thus they make election depend on man instead of making man's salvation depend on God's eternal purpose.
But Scripture consistently declares that faith, holiness, adoption, perseverance, and glory all flow from God's eternal choice.
God chose us not because we were holy, but that we might become holy; not because we believed, but that we might believe; not because we were worthy, but because He was gracious.
This is the doctrine of Scripture, the doctrine of the ancient church, and the doctrine defended by the Reformers: that salvation from beginning to end rests upon the free, sovereign, and unchangeable grace of God in Christ Jesus.