Comments on Jack Cottrell’s Classical Arminian View

Once a certain picture of God captures our imagination and we learn to put biblical ideas together in a certain way— or once we begin operating from a given theological paradigm, if you will— we almost naturally assume that we are reading the Bible just as it is, whereas our opponents are ignoring important parts of its clear message. According to Bruce Ware, for example, Arminians teach “only part of what the Bible says without accepting other teachings which do not easily fit with what already has been accepted.” And, of course, we non-Calvinists would say the same thing about the Calvinists. In defense of the Arminian view, for example, Jack Cottrell writes: “Contrary to Calvinism, ... the Bible itself clearly shows that God's purposive (efficacious) will does not include all things. ... This is seen in the fact that sometimes the... words that speak of God's determinative purpose are used to represent God's desire for certain things to happen which in fact do not happen.” So the Calvinists, Cottrell argues, are ignoring important parts of the total biblical message. Similarly, I hold that both the Calvinists (or Augustinians, as I prefer to call them) and the Arminians reject some of the clear teaching in Romans 5, Romans 11, and I Corinthians 15 and do so because this teaching does not fit with “what has already been accepted” about divine judgment. And my four colleagues in this discussion no doubt believe the same sort of thing about me: As they no doubt see it (and will no doubt argue in their criticism of my chapter), I reject some of the clear teaching in Matthew 25:46, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, and Revelation 20 because it does not fit with my understanding of Paul’s universalism.