Arminian / Wesleyan
Conditional Election

Why Conditional Election Empties Predestination

Introduction — The View That Feels Like the Default

For many evangelicals, Arminian or Wesleyan theology does not feel like an alternative system. It feels normal. It is the language of altar calls, evangelistic tracts, and everyday explanations of salvation.

This view affirms sin, stresses grace, calls for faith, and urges responsibility. Because of that, it often escapes careful scrutiny. Yet beneath its familiar tone lies a decisive reordering of salvation.

The issue is not whether faith is required; Scripture is clear that it is.
The issue is why one person believes and another does not.

This article argues that conditional election quietly relocates the decisive act of salvation from God’s eternal will to human choice foreseen by God. In doing so, it preserves the vocabulary of predestination while emptying it of power.

I. The Question Scripture Forces Us to Ask

Every system of salvation must answer one unavoidable question:

What ultimately explains saving faith?

Arminian and Wesleyan theology typically answers:

• God desires all to be saved
  
  

• Christ died for all equally
  
  

• Grace is given to all (often called prevenient grace)
  
  

• Humans are enabled to choose
  
  

• God elects those He foreknows will freely believe

Election, in this view, is conditional. God chooses believers because He knows they will choose Him.

Scripture presses a different question:
Is faith the cause of election, or the result of it?

“It depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16)

II. What Scripture Clearly Teaches About Election and Faith

Scripture consistently presents election as the ground of faith, not the other way around.

“As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” (Acts 13:48)

“All that the Father gives me will come to me.” (John 6:37)

Faith follows God’s giving. Belief flows from divine appointment.

Conditional election reverses this order. Faith becomes the decisive condition that triggers election. Grace enables belief, but belief explains salvation.

This is not a small adjustment. It changes what grace does.

III. Foreknowledge in Scripture: Personal, Not Predictive

Conditional election leans heavily on the word foreknowledge. But Scripture’s use of this term is not merely informational.

“Those whom he foreknew he also predestined…” (Romans 8:29)

The text speaks of whom, not what. Foreknowledge is personal and relational, not predictive observation.

Throughout Scripture, to “know” someone is to set covenantal love upon them. God’s foreknowledge is His purposeful regard for a people, not His awareness of future decisions.

When foreknowledge is reduced to foresight, election becomes reactive. God no longer determines salvation; He responds to it.

IV. Prevenient Grace and the Final Distinction

To avoid Pelagianism, Wesleyan theology introduces prevenient grace; a universal grace that restores the ability to choose.

This grace:

• Enables faith
  
  

• Is resistible
  
  

• Does not guarantee belief

The critical question remains:

Why do some accept prevenient grace while others resist it?

If the answer is “because they chose differently,” then the decisive distinction lies in the human will. Grace explains possibility, not outcome.

Scripture presents grace as more than assistance. It presents grace as effectual.

V. How This Teaching Is Often Defended

Conditional election is often defended as balanced and pastoral. It appears to preserve:

• Human responsibility
  
  

• Moral seriousness
  
  

• Evangelistic urgency

But Scripture never safeguards responsibility by weakening grace. It grounds responsibility in grace’s power to save and transform.

What feels fair to us is not always faithful to Scripture.

VI. How Conditional Election Undermines Assurance

If election rests on foreseen faith, perseverance rests on continued faith.

This introduces instability:

• Can faith fail?
  
  

• Can salvation be lost?
  
  

• Is assurance ever final?

Answers vary, but assurance is always forced inward; toward the quality of one’s faith rather than the certainty of God’s purpose.

Scripture directs assurance elsewhere:

“He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” (Philippians 1:6)

Election, in Scripture, secures perseverance. Conditional election cannot.

VII. Confessional Clarity

The 1689 London Baptist Confession rejects conditional election because Scripture does.

It affirms:

• Unconditional election
  
  

• Effectual calling
  
  

• Faith as God’s gift
  
  

• Certain perseverance grounded in God’s decree

These doctrines do not deny responsibility. They preserve grace as decisive and salvation as secure.

Pastoral Conclusion — Where This Leaves the Believer

Conditional election tells believers that God chose them because He foresaw their faith.

The gospel tells believers something better:
God gave them faith because He chose them.

Grace does not wait to see who will believe.
Grace creates belief.
Grace finishes what it begins.

Predestination is not God watching salvation unfold.
It is God accomplishing salvation in Christ.

Where election is conditional, assurance wavers.
Where grace is decisive, the believer rests.

Reader Invitation

• Do you think of election as God’s response or God’s purpose?
  
  

• Where do you locate the decisive difference between belief and unbelief?
  
  

• How does grounding salvation in God’s will reshape assurance?

• General-Audience Teaching Document (Live)

Coming Next

Article 5 — Corporate Election / Provisionism
“Chosen ‘In Him’ Without Being Chosen: The Limits of Corporate Election”