Talk:Arminianism

POV - "best", "worst"
In the history section:

"Some, like Philip von Limborch, moved in the direction of semi-Pelagianism at best or Socinianism or rationalism at worst."

A wikipeadia article shouldn't say that something is 'better' or 'worse' than something, as this is opinion. However, as I don't know much about the topic I don't feel I can rewrite the sentence. 217.44.97.242 (talk) 18:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I removed the sentence in question. carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 23:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

"Further reading" section
Hi all,

I moved a "further reading" annotated bibliography from this article to History of Calvinist–Arminian debate. It did not seem to really belong here. I mean, there's no "supporting" and "opposing" bibliography section on the Calvinism article, is there? However, it seemed a good fit on the History of Calvinist–Arminian debate page, so I moved it there. On that page it still needs to be wikified. Here on this page I removed the "opposing" Arminianism section, removed the annotations, and wikified the sources.

TuckerResearch (talk) 20:37, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Salvation by Faith alone in Arminian theology
Revision as of 17:50, 2 May 2011 (edit)178.99.224.4 (talk)(→Common misconceptions)

In the Common misconceptions section the following was added:
 * To keep true to faith, by one's own effort, constitutes a work. So Arminianism does, philosophically, teach work as the way to be eternally saved, and not that faith is simply a once for all gift of God (Eph.2.8), that is not upheld by man or the term faith loses its meaning.

I undid the edit because it presented a personal opinion (argument) without citing a scholarly source. Wikipedia is not for presenting a Bible study to advocate a certain view as opposed to another 'incorrect' view. It is an encyclopedia where scholarly views are cited and perhaps compared. If editor 178.99.224.4 can find a citable statement, then it would be acceptable to enter the viewpoint into the text. As editors, we need to guard against writing uncited personal views. Ephesians 2.8 has been explained by Arminians as well as those who oppose Arminian thought. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 18:35, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Comparison with Calvinism
In this section the parenthetical remark saying Arminians "don't believe the Bible" seems like a violation of POV regulations. I'm getting it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.122.30.141 (talk) 18:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Fine. (Please add the ~ signature on talk pages.) Charles Matthews (talk) 06:55, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

What about Anglican Arminianism?
This page lacks any reference to the brand of Arminianism which gained ascendance in Laudian wing of the Church of England in the 1620s and 30s. After the Restoration it was among the dominant schools of theology in the Church of England, to the detriment of Calvinism. Laudian Arminianism is a unique species, and reflected the religious controversies particular to England (the Laudian/Puritan battles) and only bears a family resemblance to Arminianism as classically defined, but bears some mentioning nonetheless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.206.37.234 (talk) 15:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, I was editing Laud's page and came here expecting to read a bit more about it but it is entirely absent.--Britannicus (talk) 20:10, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for addition after the chart "Comparison among protestants"
An example of Arminianism can be found in John Wesley, whose beliefs have been contrasted with the five point of Calvinism with the acrostic ACURA.

ACURA
A: all are sinful

C: conditional election

U: unlimited atonement

R: resistible grace

A: assurance of salvation

I am a student researcher for Dr. Thorsen, so do not want to add it to the document myself. Klfkyle (talk) 15:14, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

source please
for the following sentence: "Some falsely assert that Universalists and Unitarians in the 18th and 19th centuries were theologically linked with Arminianism." --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 17:38, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If it has no source, either add a template, or just remove it. — Confession0791 talk 03:27, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

regeneration
this is a newer subject for me, and i was reading through the article and realized that without understanding certain terminology, it would be difficult to understand even the basic outline of the theology/ies. specifically, "regeneration" came up multiple times in the list of beliefs of 'Classical Arminianism." i scanned to the top of that section but didn't see an explanation for this term/concept. so i used the "find" feature of the browser to look for "regeneration."  not once was it explained.  i finally "found" it waaayy down at the bottom, "defined" as:
 * regenerated (that is, born again) or saved.

i'm just thinking that MAYBE this term (and even this concept) ought to be explained towards the BEGINNING of the article, since it IS a central part of this theology/belief system?Colbey84 (talk) 04:53, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

16th Century Baptists
"Many Christian denominations have been influenced by Arminian views on the will of man being freed by grace prior to regeneration, notably the Baptists in the 16th century..."

Seeing as there were no Baptists in the 16th Century, either the source is incorrect, there is an error in its usage, or people have mistaken the 16th century for the 1600's. 2606:A000:8311:CE00:C015:9ACA:EF15:5BF7 (talk) 04:30, 23 July 2017 (UTC)AM
 * I just corrected it, with only 2 years of response time. Thank you ---Telikalive (talk) 15:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I think the phrase "the will of man being freed by grace" is nonsense. No one on either side of the Arminian/Calvinist debate talks like that. The Arminians say man has free will (not that it is freed) and that he can therefore decide to repent of sin and come to God; the Calvinists say man's will is so bound up in sin that he is "dead in trespasses and sins" is not able even to desire to be saved from sin. But neither party says that the will is "freed by grace". UBJ 43X (talk) 19:19, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @UBJ 43X Augustine who coined the term "prevenient grace" talked also about the related "liberated free will" (liberum arbitrium liberatum). This is this very terminology used by Arminians. As Olson put it : "The gospel read or heard imparts prevenient grace so that the person is for the first time freed to repent and trust in God. In other words, Arminians do not believe in “free will” but in “freed will.”" What Olson wants to say here, is that of course Arminians beleive in the existence of the philosophical "libertarian free will", but their real hope is in the spiritual liberation of the free will by the prevenient grace. ---Telikalive (talk) 09:02, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Telikalive. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what you say and your Olson quotation. I've never heard anything like that before. I had been on the point of boldly rewriting the article on this point, but perhaps it was a good thing I held back. UBJ 43X (talk) 00:06, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

List of recent Arminian theologians
I already provided an extended notable Arminian christians list. Recent Arminian scholars cited in Arminianism should be among the most notable ones. In order to provide an objective base of discussion, I put in the table below the Worldcat number of publications at date as a measure of "global notability". I know this number is not exhaustive, and that the type of publications is the most important parameter. And I put the posts about them on http://evangelicalarminians.org as a measure of their "Arminian notability" at date. I recognize that those figures are certainly not a definitive indication of notability. Moreover, I think that this list of people can be improved, and additional criterion should be taken into account. Personally I would not mention Stanley Hauerwas and William Henry Willimon, and I don't consider J. Kenneth Grider as among the most notable Arminian theologians. This is because I don't see in their publications many that promote, explain, defend Arminianism in itself. I even think that Mildred Bangs Wynkoop would be preferable to be mentioned at the place of Grider. This having been said I'm not a specialist, and your reasoned opinion is welcomed about "why not removing him ?" ---Telikalive (talk) 09:16, 9 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I apologise for the late reply. I saw that you had removed a name alongside a citation and the edit summary did not appear satisfactory to me. Usually when removing sourced content an explanation is given. However I see your edit is reasonable, so I don't object to your improvement. Thanks for your contributions! --Hazhk (talk) 19:51, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank for the reminder. You are right, I recognize that I didn't give enough explanation. I know I need to be more careful about that. Thank you. ---Telikalive (talk) 21:05, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

To do list
As part of the WikiProject Arminianism tasks list, some tasks to be performed on this article should be: History Current landscape Theological legacy Classical Arminianism Wesleyan Arminianism Other variations Arminianism and other views ---Telikalive (talk) 12:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Reduce lead size according to MOS:LEADLENGTH (2 paragraphs is less than 200 words / 25 % of the current size)✅
 * Lead information that is not explained in the body should be moved there (MOS:INTRO).✅
 * Move the notes of the lead in the body (MOS:LEADCITE) ✅
 * Expand theological chapters with topics not yet covered by this articles:
 * Anabaptism ✅
 * Arminianism in the Church of England ✅
 * methodism ✅
 * Pentecostalism ✅
 * Seventh-day Adventist Church ✅
 * One source for each theologian mentioned ✅
 * Free_will_in_antiquity ✅
 * Predestination✅
 * Free will in theology ✅
 * Synergism ✅
 * Penal theory ✅
 * Governmental theory of atonement ✅
 * Apostasy in Christianity ✅
 * Hell in Christianity (view of classical Arminianism on the nature of definitive judgment output)✅
 * Covenant theology
 * Penal theory ✅
 * Governmental theory of atonement ✅
 * Imparted righteousness
 * Corporate election ✅
 * Move here open theism from "other variations", since its base can be not only Arminianism but also semi-Pelagianism.✅
 * Reduce points that tend to define Calvinism, which is to be left to the Calvinism article. ✅

The "five solae of the Reformation" - but this appears to be a 20th century concept
Hello. The introductory paragraph states that Jacobus Arminius's "teachings held to the five solae of the Reformation". I do not think this can be exactly correct, since the idea that there were "FIVE" solae is itself only a 20th century idea (according to the Wikipedia article on the solae). And that sounds right to me; I do not remember anything about "five" solae in the Reformation, rather "sola scriptura", "sola fide" and I guess "sola gratia".

But I have never done an edit so I leave this as a discussion point...

Gregory Todd 22.04.2021 172.58.239.70 (talk) 13:52, 22 April 2021 (UTC) I removed "five solea" Telikalive (talk) 14:59, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

The lede does not define or explain the subject of the article
The whole lede does not contain any information on what the key doctrine(s) of this school of thought were, just a vague statement that they were 'an attempt' to be in some way 'more moderate' on a certain subject than another school of thought. A lede should contain a brief definition and explanation of the essence of the subject of the article - in the case of a school of thought, that means stating what its most characteristic idea(s) is/are. Readers shouldn't have to read the entire article to find out what its subject even *is*. 87.126.21.225 (talk) 11:13, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I just re-read the lede, and in my opinion it is OK. It does say that the main issue is the Calvinist approach to predestination and to the free will of man by grace (which even has a wl to the separate concept). You could try and spell out anything you think is missing here, so we can see if it can be added to it? Thank you, warshy (¥¥) 15:51, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Following this remark, I highlighted a little bit more the central Arminian beliefs in the lead. ---Telikalive (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2023 (UTC)