In this source, Divine Knowledge and Free-Will Theism, a Chapter out of The Grace of God, the Will of Man by Richard Rice, a theologian and professor of philosophy at Loma Linda University in California writes in very technical and specific terms to inform other theologians and his peers of current attitudes and traditional interpretations of Arminian doctrine in order to inform and give scholarly criticism on the Calvinist perspective. Throughout the source Rice reviews the basics of traditional Arminianism, the conflicts some see within it, how those conflicts are being addressed today, and how the doctrine is being embraced over that of a Calvinistic perspective.
Arminians do not discard the omniscient knowledge of God, but rather believe that it is “immutable… extend[ing] to all things, both necessary and contingent” (Rice 122). However, humans still have free-will because God sees all things, “in the infinite Now of eternity, which embraces all time.” Meaning God is outside of time and perceives the past, present, and future as a single moment of eternity (Rice 122, 124). Through a modern Arminian perspective, God’s will is thus not set in stone but is responsive to the needs of His children and their decisions made in free-will (Rice 122-123). While God cannot foresee the exact decisions humans will make, God does have divine foreknowledge on what the consequences and outcomes of his own decisions will be, oftentimes resulting in punishment or prophecy that must be fulfilled (Rice 123). Ultimately, the goal of Arminian doctrine is to prove that believers have the ability to “accept or reject God’s offer of salvation” (Rice 123). This paints the “portrait of God” as a loving and gentle parent who cares like a father and focuses on a grace doctrine, rather than a “monarch” who focuses on sovereignty and majesty above all else (Rice 130). Rice continues to support Arminianism through a scriptural basis that shows “God’s desire to love people… calls to repentance… warnings about falling away… and general emphasis on human responsibility.” Rice continues by criticizing Calvinism’s logical fallacy that if God is the cause for everything then “God [becomes] responsible for all evil in the world” (Rice 132-133). Due to the personability of Arminianism, “recent developments in evangelical thought indicate that support is growing for the Arminian view of God” (Rice 134). “Since God knows all possibilities, he knows everything that could happen and what he could do in response to each eventuality” (Rice 134).
The information given to me through Richard Rice’s work helped me see the specifics of Arminianism in a more complicated and nuanced fashion that I did not find in Olson’s work. In particular, I noticed Rice has put a very heavy emphasis on the median of time and how God, being eternal, is essentially outside of time and able to look on it differently than humans. However, because humans must still have free-will in Arminianism, it would seem to me that God does not see a particular version of the future for each individual, but rather a plethora of complicated, alternate realities that may or may not become true depending on the decision made by us. This, in some ways, relates to quantum physics and string theory, etc., however vaguely and has not been researched in any way to my knowledge. Ultimately, God gives Arminians the right to accept or decline salvation because he desires a genuine and authentic relationship with those he is saving, and Arminians believe that if they are participants in the process of unconditional election (such as in Calvinism) then they are, in some ways, being forced to love and accept a God they do not actually want to worship. This modern view on Arminianism, that God has both foreknowledge, sovereignty, and enough patience to allow human free will is slightly more nuanced than that originally proposed by Arminius himself, yet helps establish the nuance of my research and answer the question of what common sentiment has brought to the discussion over time. Overall, this information helped me build on the differences between Arminianism and Calvinism that matter so much between the two groups.
When comparing Rice’s work on Arminianism and Olson’s work on Arminianism, I find that the two pieces essentially agree on nearly all principles of the doctrine. Both believe that God is involved with believer’s on a personal level and allows believer’s to accept or reject salvation (Olson 88) (Rice 123). However, while both believe in free-will concerning the state of a believer’s soul, Rice gives a much more nuanced and larger view of free-will theology and how it applies outside of simply gaining salvation, something which Olson ignores and avoids in his article (Rice 124, 134). When comparing Rice’s work with that of Van Wyk’s Calvinist perspective the differences are massive-- Rice, again, believes in free-will theology and that believers have a choice in salvation; Van Wyk is an advocate of old-school predestination (Rice 123) (Van Wyk 6). Additionally, Van Wyk subscribes to the primarily Calvinist idea that God is ultimately sovereign above personal, compared to the personability and grace based attributes given to God by the Arminian views of Rice and Olson, and even the unique Calvinist view presented by Habets’ “acute personalization” (Van Wyk 5) (Rice 122) (Olson 90) (Habets 337).
Pinnock, Clark H., and Richard Rice. The Grace of God, the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism. Grand Rapids: Academie, 1989. Print.