The Narrow Path Ministries

Does anyone know if there has been a confession of faith by Arminians similar to that of the Westminster Confession (Presbyterian) or the 1689 Confession (Reformed Baptists)?

Yes, it is called the Remonstrants, although many Arminians are in Churches where no one takes historical creeds seriously.
Far too many Churches have 5 or 6 short points as their creed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remonstrants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_artic ... monstrance

Mark

tartanarmy wrote:Yes, it is called the Remonstrants, although many Arminians are in Churches where no one takes historical creeds seriously.
Far too many Churches have 5 or 6 short points as their creed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remonstrants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_artic ... monstrance

Mark

Mark, you have commented in another thread that Arminianism is a step back towards Rome. But I see the consolidation of Christianity into confessions and creeds as a step back to Rome. Where truth is determined by a few and exercised over the multitudes where people who don't conform to the denominational distinctives (Reformed or otherwise) are "branded", or worse. Just like Rome has done for over 1000 years.

Never said that. What I have said is that Non Calvinists like the ones who post here are closer to Rome when it comes to the doctrines concerning man and his will and Soteriology with its Synergism.

This was the "crux" matter in the reformation as far as Luther was concerned.
Read his answer to the Catholic Erasmus in his work called "Bondage of the will", written against Erasmus "freedom of the will".

http://www.truecovenanter.com/trueluthe ... r_bow.html

You do not appear to have a clue as to why we have creeds in the Church from your comments above, but feel free to believe as you wish.

For a good answer to why creeds are not the enslavement of the masses as you so falsely assume, perhaps read the following links if you have the time.

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds.htm

"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever," (Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 1).

Let us remember the words of Peter when he said, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:20-21 KJV)

tartanarmy wrote: Let us remember the words of Peter when he said, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (2 Peter 1:20-21 KJV)

What does this quote from Peter have to do with your point?

tartanarmy wrote:
For a good answer to why creeds are not the enslavement of the masses as you so falsely assume, perhaps read the following links if you have the time.

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/creeds.htm

"Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever," (Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 1).

My point is why would we not use the bible itself and the Holy Spirit to guide us? Were creeds a command of Christ? (Teach them all things I have commanded, said Jesus) I'm not saying they are all wrong (although they could be), I'm saying that they can become a "CliffsNotes" for scripture. Didn't the Rabbis do this? Didn't their opinions enter into the word of God and become as if they were God's commands? If all scripture is "God breathed" then why would I (If I were an elder, for instance) subject the congregation to creeds? Is not man prone to error? If I've got God breathed scripture in one hand, and man's effort at expounding it's meaning in the other, It seems like the choice would be obvious. Not that creeds aren't interesting reading.

As N.T. Wright stated:

"Many of us grew up being taught to read the Bible in one or both of two ways.

"On the one hand there was the devotional reading: A passage each morning, and one prayed and listened to hear something that 'God was saying to me today' through it. The historical and literary setting was quite unimportant; what mattered was 'What does this say to me today?'. Now that's a venerable and not unimportant practise. But if it's divorced from other readings of Scripture it can become not only self-centered but also dangerously arbitrary. God doesn't deceive people but people can be, and often are, self-deceived. Detached devotional reading gets you so far but you can easily get stuck.

"On the other hand there was 'the Bible as proof texts'. Some classical instances come to mind; The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, with its doctrinal statements and its big biblical footnotes. That encouraged a mentality which thought of the Bible as an unsorted collection of data, belonging in principle to a unified dogmatic theology; as though God had given us the Bible like a jig-saw puzzle in a box all shaken up into bits, needing to be assembled into a single picture which, whatever it was going to look like, sure as anything wouldn’t look like what we actually have from Genesis to Revelation.

Sean,

Imo, the Creeds of the Church are mostly about, or are related to, early Christological controversies of the first three centuries or so; though they do offer "summaries" of what Christians believe. If one believes what they say, they are powerful to recite. If one doesn't believe in what is said, that would be only so much vain babbling (useless to that individual).

Confessions of Faith, like the Westminster, go into doctrinal matters in more (and/or very much) detail. Many evangelical denominations have Statements of Faith that function as like a "Confession." Often they have "position papers" that go into the further details.

Btw, 'great N.T. Wright quote!


Mark,

John MacArthur, the Calvinist, is Premillennialist. Does this make him a Jehovah's Witness? No, of course not! I'm an Amillennialist just like Roman Catholics. Am I now Catholic? No.

What the Bible says is unequivocally more important than what anyone says, including: me, you, Darin, Sean, Steve Gregg, James White, Luther, Calvin, Arminius, or what anyone else says! (That's not up for debate, imnsho), lol.

"Synergism," if you will recall, was a doctrine invented no later than the early 1600's by Reformed theologians. I've found no trace of this term before then. Labelling someone or a school of theology "synergist" makes perfect sense if...one believes in Reformed doctrine on this particular matter. The Non-Calvinist posters on this forum do not see things like you do in this (we know being called a "synergist" is basically, a slur). Speaking for myself, I see no need or reason to discuss this further with you.

The Westminster Confession more closely resembles The Catholic Magisterium than any Non-Calvinistic Statement of Faith I've seen. Of course, this doesn't make Calvinists Catholics! (to not-follow your "guilt by association" logical fallacy)! But it does show that Calvinists have an allegiance to a theological system contained in an extra-biblical document (WCF)...not to mention Calvin's Institutes.

The Non-Calvinists, who post here anyway, simply don't have, and or have need for a detailed "go-by" to explain the Bible to them. This isn't to say that extra-biblical sources are not useful! But if their premises are wrong, their faulty conclusions will follow in kind. Btw, I do not consider myself an Arminian...just "more Arminian than Calvinist" (which I'm not in any sense that I know of).

Lastly, the presuppositions and premises of the WCF are incompatible with my Non-Calvinist understanding of what the Bible itself really teaches (my worldview)...I know that, you know that, we all know that, on this forum. So I see no fruit in much further discussion unless real discussion were to, somehow, happen.

Thanks,
Rick

Rick_C wrote:Sean,

Imo, the Creeds of the Church are mostly about, or are related to, early Christological controversies of the first three centuries or so; though they do offer "summaries" of what Christians believe. If one believes what they say, they are powerful to recite. If one doesn't believe in what is said, that would be only so much vain babbling (useless to that individual).

I'm not sure I agree with the apostles creed when it states: "He descended into hell". Several popular TV evangelist have gone hog wild with this.

Summarizing truth in a creed can seem like a great thing, but why not study the whole word of God? I hope God didn't give us so much information that we think we need to summarize it and meditate on that portion we are told to think is most important. I like to meditate on as much of the bible as I can get my mind around. Which may not be very much.

Rick_C wrote: Btw, 'great N.T. Wright quote!

Well thanks for posting it in the first place.

I'm not sure the Five Articles of Remonstrants is so much a full Confessional Statement along the lines I'm curious about. I suppose if you broke each one of the points in those articles down into confessional statements, you'd be close, but there's the rub -- I'm curious if anyone has done that in any way embraced by any meaningful group of historic orthodox Arminians.

Sean:

I'm not sure I agree with the apostles creed when it states: "He descended into hell"

Sean, I think this statement may have been derived from this passage from I Peter 3:18-20

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah...

Even many fundamentalists think that this means that Jesus went to Hades, considered to be the place of departed spirits before Jesus' resurrection, to proclaim to the departed his resurrection. Then "he led captivity captive", which to these people means he set free those in the paradise section of hades, and took them to heaven. Those in the other section were left behind, and will remain there until the judgment when they will be cast into Gehenna, the Lake of Fire.

I am familiar with this view since it was my own ---- as a teenager.