in Uncategorized 387 Words

An analogy for Calvinism, Arminianism, and Semi-Pelagianism

Leighton Flowers inadvertently gives a great analogy describing the difference between Calvinism, Arminianism, and semi-Pelagianism:

“Pretend for this analogy that a person is in a room with eyes. He has the ability to see. And he has a light on.

“That’s Adam in the garden… He’s right there with the light. The Father [and him are] having good communion. He has the ability to see and he has the light right there with him.

“Well, he sins, and so he’s cast out of the garden where the light is. And so that person is now in a room without any light… Now he’s unable to commune with the Father because he’s out of the Father’s fellowship. And even though he holds a hand up in front of his eyes, he can’t see it because he’s in complete darkness.

“So that is a form of inability. It’s an inability because of a lack of light. And so what he needs outside the garden is… light. He needs incarnation. He needs revelation. He needs scripture. He needs light… That’s all that we think he needs.

“The Arminian—or the classical Arminian maybe, and maybe the full Calvinist—would say, not only when he [was] cast out of the garden did he lose light, he also lost sight…. His eyes were plucked out and the light bulb was taken away.

“So there’s two conditions that need to be met now. There needs to be light brought to this person. And he needs to be given new eyes.

“The Arminian says he’s given new eyes through prevenient grace to the point where he now can make a free choice with regard to what he sees.

“The Calvinist says he’s given new eyes to which whenever he sees the light he effectually will believe it.

“The Provisionist¹ says he never lost his eyes. He just needed light. So that would be the distinction between our worldviews.” (December 22, 2020, YouTube 1:15:42)

¹ Many would simply call this semi-Pelagianism. This position isn’t new.

More on Leighton Flowers here.

What an incredible analogy for salvation. Remember it next time you sing:

Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me I once was lost,
but now I’m found
Was BLIND but now I see!