This Week in Calvinism - August 20, 2010

• The Seeking Disciple clarifies Romans 9 from an Arminian perspective: "What Paul is contrasting in Romans 9 is not the individual salvation of one person versus another but the two people found in Israel. ... The elect are not the Jews but the elect children of promise are those who are in Christ Jesus." The point of Romans 9, as I understand it, is God's sovereign choice. If you continue reading through chapters 10 and 11, you learn that Gentile believers are "grafted in among the others." So how exactly is each individual person in Christ elected if not individually?
  
  
• William Birch writes, "Either people are genuinely free to choose for themselves what they shall achieve, even if said choice is foreknown and thus decreed by God, or there is no genuine choice because God has already strictly predetermined what shall be." It seems to me the Calvinist could simply respond by saying, "Either God is genuinely free to choose for himself what he shall achieve, or there is no genuine choice because God has already strictly predetermined that his will shall be limited by man's."
  
  
• Russell Moore explains why conservative evangelicals should thank God for Clark Pinnock.
  
  
• The humility of Calvin's Calvinism.