By Michael Williams
John MacArthur spends a great deal of time warning Christians about false teachers. Fair enough. But that standard has to apply to our descriptions of people we disagree with too.
In this video MacArthur tells his audience that Arminius taught that salvation is essentially “in the hands of the sinner,” that fallen man possesses the ability to believe “on his own,” that he can “muster up faith on his own,” and that faith therefore is “not a work of God” but a work of man.
There is a serious problem with that description:
Arminius explicitly taught the opposite.
Arminius wrote that fallen man is not capable “of and by himself” of thinking, willing, or doing spiritual good. He said that free will is unable even to begin spiritual good without divine grace. He described grace as preceding, accompanying, and following the sinner, and said that grace “commences salvation, promotes it, and perfects and consummates it.”
So where exactly is MacArthur getting “man believes on his own”?
That isn't Arminius.
That isn't classical Arminianism.
It is a caricature.
MacArthur effectively gives his audience this choice:
Calvinism: God saves the sinner.
Arminianism: the sinner saves himself.
But that isn't the historical disagreement.
The actual disagreement is:
Calvinism: fallen man cannot believe without grace, and God gives the elect an efficacious grace that infallibly produces faith.
Classical Arminianism: fallen man cannot believe without grace either; God must initiate, convict, draw, illuminate and enable the sinner, but that gracious enabling can be resisted.
Both systems therefore say that God must act first and salvation is impossible apart from grace. They disagree about whether enabling grace is irresistible.
You may think Arminianism is wrong on that point. Fine. Then refute that position.
But telling people that Arminius believed fallen sinners could simply “muster up faith on their own” does not refute Arminius. It substitutes Pelagianism for Arminianism and then knocks down the substitute.
MacArthur compounds the problem when he essentially equates Arminianism with Pelagianism. Pelagius is famous precisely for denying the kind of inherited moral inability for which classical Arminianism says prevenient grace is necessary. Arminius, by contrast, described fallen free will in extraordinarily strong terms and insisted that no saving response occurs independently of divine grace.
Those positions are not interchangeable.
Charles Finney is another issue. Finney held doctrines concerning human ability, regeneration and conversion that were considerably more rationalistic and anthropocentric than classical Arminianism. Criticize Finney for what Finney actually taught. But you cannot simply move from Finney → Arminius → Pelagius as though they all taught the same theology.
And there is an important principle involved here.
MacArthur frequently warns Christians that false teaching matters. I agree. But surely that means we have an obligation to represent another person's teaching truthfully before condemning it.
Scripture condemns false doctrine, but it also condemns false witness.
If I tell thousands of Christians that a theologian taught something he explicitly denied, I cannot defend myself by saying, “Well, his theology was wrong anyway.”
No. First establish what the man actually believed. Then refute it.
So the question I would put to MacArthur's defenders is simple:
Where did Jacob Arminius teach that fallen man can believe the gospel “on his own” or “muster up faith on his own”?
Produce the quotation.
Because Arminius's actual writings repeatedly say the opposite.
And if no such quotation can be produced, then MacArthur is not exposing Arminianism in this video. He is teaching his audience a false description of Arminianism.
Whether someone wants to go one step further and call MacArthur himself a “false teacher” is a broader judgment that should be based upon his overall teaching, not one inaccurate statement. But there should be no double standard here: a man who built much of his ministry warning people about false teaching should be held to an exceptionally high standard when he tells Christians what his theological opponents believe.
Refute Arminianism if you wish.
Just refute the real thing.
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