Thursday, September 18, 2008
A Thinking President
I'm pleased to say that we have a thinking president at SEBTS. Yesterday in the "Q&A with Dr. Akin" chapel, Dr. Akin received questions from students and provided some thoughtful, scriptural insight. I must say, I was thoroughly pleased with Dr. Akin's response to the Arminian question. Anyone who was there will know to which I refer. Dr. Akin spoke clearly to the issue, and even went further than I expected him to go. Toward the end of his answer Dr. Akin said "Pelagianism is heresy, Arminianism is error." I take this to be roughly the same as Spurgeon saying "And what is the heresy of Arminianism but the addition of something to the work of the Redeemer?" Both Akin and Spurgeon recognize that Arminianism is clearly aberrant, but that it not a soul damning error. To prove the difference in types of "heresy", Spurgeon later goes on to comment "But far be it from me even to imagine that Zion contains none but Calvinistic Christians within her walls, or that there are none saved who do not hold our views....and if there were wanted two apostles to be added to the number of the twelve, I do not believe that there could be found two men more fit to be so added than George Whitefield and John Wesley." My hat definitely goes off to Dr. Akin for speaking so clearly to this theologically charged issue. I wonder what he would have to say about Molinism? Perhaps next Q&A time...
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2 comments:
with your recent post entitled "election" and now this one, one could think that you're getting political... now what of us who were not at that meeting, and therefore do not know what the question was?
I can definitely see how it might seem that I was getting political! No worries, I don't know enough about politics to make any informed posts on that subject matter.
As to the question asked of Dr. Akin, I'll try and get it right... It went something like this, "As a reformed, or classical, Arminian, I was wondering if you think there is a place at the table of the SBC for Arminian theologians. It seems as if we're either overlooked or people act like we don't exist." That is a really rough recounting, but its somewhat close. Dr. Akin began by replying, "Well, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'Reformed Arminian'..." He went on to say that there was definitely a place for Arminians in the SBC so long as they at least held to the doctrine of eternal security, or the perseverance of the saints. Akin said that if someone didn't believe in eternal security they would probably fit in better and be more comfortable in a Free Will Baptist denomination, or other denomination that did not affirm that doctrine. Then he concluded with the content mentioned in the post.
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