Originally posted by GoBahnsen
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I'm afraid you're missing the point. As Dante touched upon above, the issue is the nature of election to salvation. Surely you are aware that Arminius (for example) affirmed divine election and predestination to salvation. The problem arises when words like "election" and "predestination" become conflated with unconditional election and/or unconditional predestination. Only when election and predestination are understood to be unconditional in nature may it be said that non-Calvinists "deny" election. You may also say that only Calvinism affirms God's sovereignty. This is false as well. Divine sovereignty must never be conflated with exhaustive divine determinism. This is merely one way to understand divine sovereignty. Non-Calvinists believe God is ultimately sovereign as well, but not in the same way Calvinists do.
Allow me to cite one more example. It is (unfortunately) not uncommon for Protestant annihilationists to be accused of denying "hell" by those who advocate the conventional/standard view of final punishment. Of course, if final punishment is arbitrarily defined as endless conscious torment, annihilationists emphatically deny "hell".1 While such reasoning is completely disingenuous, sadly many are not above this kind of sophistry. (Beware of word-loading, a favorite tactic employed by theological tricksters looking to score cheap points.) The nature of "hell"/final punishment is the question, not the concept itself. We should never conflate our personal understanding of concepts with the concepts themselves. We can all agree that divine sovereignty, election to salvation and "hell"/final punishment are concepts clearly presented in Scripture. However, this doesn't answer whether God exercises exhaustive determinism, whether election to salvation is conditional or not, or whether the lost will be tormented endlessly.2
Notes
1 I almost can't wait for some theological huckster to quote mine me on this one.
2 I cite these three examples because of the sheer frequency with which they arise as topics for theological debate.
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