By Mark W. Christy, PhD Calvinists uphold a compatibility understanding of the doctrine of election whereby God chose those whom He would save before the beginning of creation in such a way that their free will response becomes a foregone conclusion. Given the imposition of God’s selective to the choice of those who would be saved, the atoning sacrifice of Christ necessarily becomes limited to these Elect of God. In this system of thought, the Non-Elect are those who make a free will rejecti...

By Mark W. Christy, PhD Within the ongoing debate between Calvinists and Arminians, one passage that has attracted much attention is Romans 8:28-30: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and ...

By Mark W. Christy, PhD In Ephesians 2:8, Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”[i] Surprisingly, this seemingly simple and straightforward verse is the subject of much debate in part because its interpretation greatly affects the ongoing theological dissension between Calvinists and Arminians. In this short article, Eph 2:8 will be examined so as to determine whether or not it truly means that faith is indeed a gift....

By Mark W. Christy, PhD Among Calvinistic and Arminian Southern Baptists, the debate over the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement continues unabated. Stoking this fire, some from the Arminian side opted to publish “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation” in 2012.[i] One of the signatories of this doctrinal statement, David Allen, submitted a detailed defense of the Article 3 on Christ’s atoning work in a work entitled Anyone Can be Saved.[ii] I...

By Mark W. Christy, PhD Among many Southern Baptists, a sort of popular theology has taken root which persists in affirming a salvific role for what is known as an autonomous/libertarian free will. Whereas classical Arminianism affirms the bondage of the will due to sin and the role of prevenient (coming before) grace in a person’s heart (their inner person including mind, will, desires, and emotions), this view supports a more semi-Pelagian view of will whereby a person can, in their own po...