Tag Archives: Arminian theology

Fancourt’s Wager

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Is it ontologically and ethically 'safer' to believe in free will rather than determinism? Samuel Fancourt thought so. Here is a passage from one of his many books on free will theology.

Were we to err in this matter, it were infinitely more safe (even in our fallen State) to err on the side of Liberty than against it. … If we are not free, but wholly passive, it can do us no hurt to think ourselves free. What I am under a Necessity to do and be, I shall do and be notwithstanding. But if we are really free, and think we have no Freedom, it may do us much Hurt, it may turn to our infinite Hurt, as it may tempt us to neglect that Part upon which Life and Immortality depend. Ay, it may not only prove an Injury to our selves, but to the World about us, whilst those valuable Talents, which were given for the publick Good, are either wickedly imploy’d against it, or slothfully buried, for want of a Vigorous and timely Resistance against the Flesh, the World, and the Devil.

Source: Samuel Fancourt. An Appendix to a Letter to the Reverend Mr. Norman, in Two Parts. Now available on Kindle.

The Prescience Papers: The 300-Year-Old Open Theism Debate We All Forgot About

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The Prescience Papers is my name for an early 18th-century debate (1725–1735) that involved seven(?) English ministers and revolved around the (in)compatibility of God’s foreknowledge with human liberty.

This bibliography has the power to reshape the debate about divine foreknowledge, as we see the diversity of both Calvinist and Arminian views that were held by fellow ministers. As the works are perused, the debate becomes eerily similar to debates that swirled around North America in the 1990s:

  • One group proposes that God cannot foreknow the decisions of a libertarian free will;
  • Another responds that this is a misconception, as God clearly foreknows all things, and foreknowledge does not imply causation or decree;
  • A third group replies that foreknowledge does mean causation, that God in fact has decreed all things, including sin, but is not therefore accountable for sin, which he hates.

Here follows the bibliography of the debate, with titles clipped for readability. I’ve linked a few books to my own Kindle editions, with hopefully more to come. I am indebted to Tom and Christine Lukashow who have done a lot of the hard work of discovering these books.

  1. Samuel Fancourt, The Greatness of the Divine Love Exemplified and Displayed, in a Sermon on 1 John 4:9 (1725)
  2. Samuel Fancourt, The Greatness of the Divine Love Vindicated in Three Letters (1727)
  3. Samuel Fancourt, Appendix on Original Sin (1729)
  4. (Anonymous), The Divine Prescience of Free Contingent Events, Vindicated and Proved (1729)
  5. Samuel Fancourt, An Essay Concerning Liberty, Grace, and Prescience (1729)
  6. John Norman, God’s Foreknowledge of Contingent Events Vindicated (1729)
  7. Samuel Fancourt, What Will Be Must Be, or Future Contingencies No Contingencies (3/10/1730)
  8. John Norman. An Appendix to a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Fancourt in Vindication Of God’s Foreknowledge of Contingent Events (1730)
  9. Anthony Bliss, A Letter in Vindication of God’s Prescience of Contingencies (1730)
  10. Samuel Fancourt, Apology, or Letter to a Friend Setting Forth the Occasion, &c., of the Present Controversy, 2nd ed. (7/27/1730)
  11. David Millar, All Future Free Actions: Future Contingencies (1731)
  12. David Millar, The Principles of the Reformed Churches (1731)
  13. Samuel Fancourt, Greatness of the Divine Love Further Vindicated (1732)
  14. David Millar, The Omniscience of God, Stated and Vindicated (1732)
  15. Samuel Fancourt, Appendix to a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Norman (1732)
  16. (Anonymous), Free Agency of Accountable Creatures (6/6/1733)
  17. Joseph Burroughes, The Certain Futurity of Free Actions No Contradiction; or, God’s Foreknowledge of All Events Not Inconsistent with Human Liberty (6/30/1733)
  18. David Millar, The Prescience of God Well Agreeing with the Liberty of Created Agents (1734/1735)

Amazingly, this is not even all of the pamphlets and books that circulated during this period on the compatibility of human free will with divine foreknowledge. Here are three others worth looking into; the second and third, like Fancourt, defend a position corresponding to modern open theism.

  1. J. Greenup, A Vindication of Human Liberty (1731)
  2. John Jackson, Some Reflections on Prescience: in which the Nature of the Divinity is Enquired Into (1731)
  3. (Anonymous), An Essay on the Freedom of Will in God and in Creatures, and on Subjects Connected Therewith (1733)
  4. (Anonymous), An Essay on the Divine Prescience and Man’s Free-Agency (1741)

Edit: Of the 22 books listed above, we’ve now published six seven as Kindle editions. Be on the lookout for more!

Review: What Will Be Must Be

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Rating: ★★★★

Author: Samuel Fancourt (1678–1768) was a Dissenting theologian in early eighteenth-century England. He is today well-known for two reasons: firstly, as a pioneer in creating the world’s first circulating library, a cause for which he practically bankrupted himself; and secondly, for being the earliest English theologian to write that some human actions are unknowable to an omniscient God.

Overview:

What Will Be Must Be is one of a polemical series centering around the Arminian theology of Samuel Fancourt, lasting from 1725 to 1735. The letters and essays include responses to Fancourt and Fancourt’s rebuttals, mainly around the concept of “future contingencies,” and the concomitant concept of God’s foreknowledge (of them). I have called this series of writings “The Prescience Papers,” and the titles are worth skimming:

  1. The Greatness of the Divine Love Exemplified and Displayed (1725)
  2. The Greatness of the Divine Love Vindicated (1727)
  3. Appendix to the Greatness of Divine Love Vindicated (1729)
  4. The Divine Prescience of Free Contingent Events, Vindicated and Proved, Anonymous (1729)
  5. An Essay Concerning Liberty, Grace, and Prescience (1729)
  6. God’s Foreknowledge of Contingent Events Vindicated, John Norman (1729)
  7. A Letter in Vindication of God’s Prescience of Contingencies, Anthony Bliss (1730)
  8. Apology, or Letter to a Friend Setting Forth the Occasion, &c., of the Present Controversy, 2nd ed. (7/27/1730)
  9. What Will Be Must Be, or Future Contingencies No Contingencies (1730)
  10. All Future Free Actions : Future Contingencies, David Millar (1731)
  11. The Principles of the Reformed Churches, David Millar (1731)
  12. Greatness of the Divine Love Further Vindicated in Reply to Mr. Millar’s “Principles of the Reformed Churches” (1732)
  13. The Omniscience of God, Stated and Vindicated, David Millar (1732)
  14. Appendix to a Letter to the Rev. Mr. Norman (1732)
  15. Free Agency of Accountable Creatures (1733)
  16. The Certain Futurity of Future Actions No Contradiction; or, God’s Foreknowledge of All Events Not Inconsistent with Human Liberty (1733)
  17. The Prescience of God Well Agreeing with the Liberty of Created Agents, David Millar (1735)

Many other books on similar topics were circulating in Dissenting circles during the same time period, such as A Vindication of Human Liberty: In Two Parts, J. Greenup (1731).

In particular, What Will Be Must Be (1730) argues that there is no such thing as a “future” event (that is, an inevitably future event) that is also a “contingent” event. This was a key idea for his opponents, such as Bliss and Norman, who argued that future events were contingent for us but inevitable for God at one and the same time.

These old works are not so fascinating in themselves, or in their precise content, because it contains no argument that would be novel to anyone well read on open theism. But the very fact that this “open view” was defended in Dissenting English theology 300 years ago is mind-boggling to those who have heard repeatedly that the open view is an innovation of the 1980s.

Meat:

The chief value of Fancourt’s writing is his return to the logical predecessor to open theism: the incompatibility of “absolute” foreknowledge with human freedom (or “the contingency of events”). Calvin also taught that contingency and foreknowledge were incompatible, but there it results in the denial of contingency and the affirmation of foreknowledge.

Fancourt’s relentlessly positive statement of God’s omniscience should be a lesson to modern open theists, who so clearly distance themselves from what they call “classical Theism.” Fancourt writes:

God’s foreknowledge is truly exhaustive: he knows past as past; present as present; certain future as certain future (because he has determined it in his providence); contingent future as contingent future (because he will allow men and angels to choose).

Again, in The Narrative (1747):

Why, it may be said—don’t you deny the prescience or foreknowledge of God? And this, however, is, we assure you, a prejudice to you here. I answer: if I deny God’s foreknowledge, it is more than I myself know. I never denied that God foreknows whatever will be.

Interestingly a chief axiom for Fancourt is that God did not plan the Fall of Man. Whatever glory he may get out of his atoning work, is not as great as his original plan, in which, Fancourt affirms, the Fall was neither foreplanned, nor a necessity.

Bones:

Reading this book in a fascimile from the 1730 edition was a hassle because of the many strange printing conventions, and I recommend getting an updated edition.

It is also annoying that the entire correspondence is not available in any format, and I hope that someone makes them all available.

Note: This review was written on May 28, 2016 and published online in 2020.

Review: Letters from a Skeptic

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Rating: ★★★

Author: Gregory (Greg) Boyd is an American pastor and theologian known for promoting relational theology. He is best known for popular theology books like Letters from a Skeptic and Myth of a Christian Nation, but he has also written ambitious theological works like God at War and The Crucifixion of the Warrior God.

Overview:

This book is an apologetics crash course, packaged as a correspondence between a theologian and his skeptic father. It is atypical in that the main problem dealt with in this book was theodicy and theology proper. About half of book deals with suffering and the freedom of God in his Creation.

Boyd’s response to these issues is found in the relational theology of open theism, which is a modification of Arminianism. As such, some of the answers are identical to those given by C. S. Lewis:

It is not the will of God which keeps sinners in hell, but the will of sinners. (p. 198)

Where did our longing for something that never existed, and that never could exist, come from? (p. 70)

Other concepts will sound quite novel for those unfamiliar with relational theology:

We tend to become the decisions we make. The more we choose something, the more we become that something. We are all in the process of solidifying our identities by the decisions we make. (p. 51, emphasis his)

I should add, here, that some online reviewers doubt the veracity of the letters because of the overall tone in writing being so similar; my gut feeling is that this could be the result of excessive editing, but I don’t see any reason to doubt the overall story.

Meat:

The strengths of the book include discussions of the problem of evil, free will, Satan, biblical prophecy, the problem of the existence of hell, and problems in the biblical canon. Whereas elsewhere Boyd gets into polemical discussions related to Calvinism and open theism, I liked that this book kept it more to discussing basic objections to faith and didn’t get too bogged down.

If you enjoy the relational theology of writers like George MacDonald, you will probably find the theology of this book compelling and interesting, though liberal on some points. If you hate Arminianism, this book is not for you.

Bones:

I would recommend this book with a few reservations:

1. Accessibility: It was written by a theologian, not your typical pastor. As such it contains a few brief discussions of some things which may not even be relevant: canonization, source criticism, etc. He tries to make it accessible, but a few of the sub-points here are pretty nitty-gritty.

2. Interpretation: Some would consider Greg to be pretty liberal in interpretation, and many Calvinists find him offensive for his free will theology in this book. However, as I stated, I think we get less of his snark in this book than some others!

3. Hell: Near the end both are overly sympathetic (in my opinion) with annihilationism, the belief that souls are destroyed in Hell rather than eternally tortured. This is mentioned only cursorily, and Greg says that he has “exegetical reservations” but nevertheless tells his dad that it is a “viable option.” His father practically accepts this hook-and-sinker with no further discussion.
I’m sure their discussion of this was not over in one letter, but I don’t like the impression that it gives in the book. Most of the book does a good job grappling with such questions, but this answer was pretty dismissive! What about Revelation 14:11?

And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.

I wouldn’t form theological opinions based on this book alone, but I think for anyone, it could help them to think through some of the most basic issues of the faith and suffering, along with outside discussion.

Review: The Knowledge of the Holy

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Rating: ★★★★★

Author: A. W. Tozer was an American pastor with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. In addition to the books that he wrote during his lifetime—of which the most famous are The Pursuit of God and The Knowledge of the Holy—hundreds of his sermons have been preserved for us and published in various forms. He also wrote many short articles as editor of the Alliance Weekly, seen for instance in Of God and Men and Born After Midnight. He is Arminian in theology, but mystical in outlook.

Genre: Devotional, theology proper.

Overview:

Tozer makes a statement in the introduction of this book that encapsulates the meaning and importance of theology proper for every believer:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. (p. 1)

After this challenge, he handles attributes of God one by one in 23 chapters, each of which has been carefully distilled.

Theology proper was the task of a lifetime for Tozer. In addition to The Knowledge of the Holy, he has numerous sermons and sermon series on God’s attributes, some of which have also been published in book form. His Attributes of God series goes into more detail on specific theological questions. Of them all, however, The Knowledge of the Holy is the clearest and the best.

Tozer sees theology as leading us first and foremost to worship. As such, his book only takes on controversial topics as they tend to the kindling of renewed faith. He is the consummate devotional writer: which is to say, his goal in his writings and sermons is always to lead his listeners and readers to worship.

Meat:

The first chapter, “Why We Must Think Rightly about God,” is an obvious high point.

A high point in this book for me was Tozer’s Arminian explanation of “The Sovereignty of God.” He writes that we may know with certainty that a steamer is bound for Boston without knowing who will be on the steamer; in the same way, we know that the “elect” are going to heaven, but who is included in the “elect” is a matter subject to change over time. This explanation should be lucid and helpful to most Arminians.

Bones:

After the introductory chapters (1-4), Tozer spends five chapters introducing theology proper in a kind of Classical framework, which is obviously influenced by Greek philosophical thought. Although there is very little that I take issue with in chapters 5 through 10, the framework is based on systematic philosophical concerns. I think it could have been a more biblically grounded, rather than systematically grounded.

Probably the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help. . . . The God who worketh all things surely needs no help and no helpers. Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty God.

While this is clear enough in systematic theology, it is not so clear in biblical theology. One of the misconceptions of Job’s friends (42:8) was that they believed that God puts no trust in his servants (4:18-19, 15:15-16). On the contrary, the theatrical frame for the Book of Job leads us to believe that God puts too much trust in his servants. God isn’t flippant concerning our spiritual outcomes; both Testaments lead us to the conclusion that he is truly invested—if anything, more invested than we ourselves are.

Quotes:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. (p. 1)

The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. To fear and not be afraid—that is the paradox of faith.

God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, ‘What doest thou?’ Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

Review: Adventure in Adversity

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Rating: ★★★★

Who: Paul E. Billheimer (1897-1984) was an American Charismatic minister who worked in media ministry during the last decades of his life. The thesis of most of his books is that the Bride of Christ is in on-the-job training for her eternal destiny through prayer and overcoming. His books are easy to read with short sections, lots of Scripture quotation, and simple, modern language.

Overview: This book is a brief devotional study on the Book of Job. The author teaches that Job was “perfect,” but only “relatively perfect,” at the beginning of the narrative. He shows how God taught Job brokenness and self-disillusionment in four areas of his life: family life, materialism, physical afflictions, and defective theology.

Some of Billheimer’s books are geared mainly towards bringing balance into the Word of Faith crowd—he worked with TBN in his later years—and you will notice a special focus on healing. Billheimer points out, however, that holiness trumps healing every time. How importance is character to God? “God is willing to be misunderstood in the universe he has made, in order to achieve his purpose of character development.” (p. 18) Delays and afflictions can work holiness in us, and even healing is meant to promote holiness in believers.

Meat: I am usually disappointed by reading someone else’s comments on Job—not so with Billheimer. He has some pretty good insights into what it means to be “relatively perfect.” Even though Job had no “blatant sin,” suffering refined him of attitudes that were not becoming in a saint.

The author’s theology is basically Wesleyan: “God does nothing except by prayer.” Billheimer’s books will resonate with those who prefer relational theology over systematic theology. Although he writes that God refines his people through suffering, he balances this by talking about God’s suffering, and emphasizing God’s compassion in his cosmic purposes.

Bones: Although Billheimer is bringing balance to the “name it, claim it” crowd, some of his statements make it sound like, if you just had enough faith, or were holy enough, then you would never experience sickness or affliction. Taken as a whole, though, I think this book is rather meant to oppose such attitudes of judgmentalism in the Church.

Quotes: “God’s purpose in permitting adversity is growth in holiness, in agape love, and that is obtained by progressive overcoming of the effects of the fall.” (p. 11)

“Tribulation’s imprint is on all great saints. It has been said that crowns are cast in crucibles … Blood marks the steps that lead to the heights.” (p. 30)

“None of us has reached the point where we are truly broken so long as we sit in judgment upon any act of God.” (p. 50)

Related: Don’t Waste Your Sorrows, The Mystery of God’s Providence, Destined for the Throne