Soteriology

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

How does God choose who will be saved and who won’t? Historically there have been two major positions; today most call these two positions Calvinism and Arminianism, but they’ve gone by other names throughout history. There are other positions, but these two are the most common. Calvinists generally put more emphasis on God’s sovereignty to choose who will be saved, and Arminians put more emphasis on our responsibility to choose to trust in Christ. For some denominations, this issue is one of their distinctives; most all Presbyterians are Calvinists, and most all Methodists are Arminians. But other denominations are different; for example, Southern Baptists don’t hold this issue as one of their distinctives.

This seven-part series examines three of the most difficult and debated chapters in Paul's epistle to the Romans, and through them seeks to discover the true heart of God.

Romans 9:1-5

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

There was little dispute over the doctrine of salvation among the early church fathers, at least not directly. The larger debates during this era though, such as the deity of Christ and the nature of the Trinity, were intertwined with, and sometimes rooted in, soteriological concerns. As John Behr points out, there were two basic axioms that directed the theological reflection of the church in its first few centuries: “The first is that only God can save. It is God who is at work in Christ. . . .The second axiom is that only as a human being can God save human beings.”1

By Adam Lloyd Johnson, Ph.D.

Are we free to choose our own path or has it already been determined for us by something, or someone, else? For the early philosophers, the largest threat to free will was fate. Later in history, Christian theologians struggled to reconcile free will with God’s sovereignty (theistic determinism). Ever since the modern era, the attack on our free will has mostly come from scientific progress in genetics, neuroscience, and psychology (physical determinism).1 Regardless of where the determinism comes from, the most perplexing question is: if everything in our lives has been determined, then how can we be held morally responsible for what we do?