The Doctrines of Grace

“Salvation belongeth unto the Lord.”

Ps. 3:8

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God”

Eph. 2:8

“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.  So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”

Rom. 9:15,16

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Subsections

Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints

Decrees of God

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Order of Contents

Articles  4
Books  3
Quotes  5
Historical Theology  6

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Articles

1800’s

Miller, Samuel – The Rejection of Revealed Truth Referable to Moral Depravity, Heb. 3:12  (1830), p. 195 ff.  44 pp.

Waddell, James – ‘Re-Examination of Dr. Girardeau’s Views of the Freedom of the Will’  in The Southern Presbyterian Review, 31.4  (Oct., 1880), pp. 690-716.  Girardeau initially wrote two articles regarding the Fall of Adam in 1879 for The Southern Presbyterian Review.  Waddell then responded with criticisms in the same journal.  In two issues of the journal in 1880 Girardeau responded to Waddell.  Here is Waddell’s response to Girardeau’s defense.

This article takes up the very interesting and somewhat complex issues regarding the nature of the decree of sin, whether it was permissive or not, and in what sense, the nature of its certainty, the relation of the decree to God’s foreknowledge, and Calvin’s interpretation of all of these things.

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1900’s

Packer, J.I. – ‘An Introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ  20 pp.

This is perhaps the best introduction to the Doctrines of Grace and Limited Atonement.  John Owen’s work is perhaps the most extensive and full treatment of the question of the Extent of Christ’s Atonement available.

Fentiman, Travis – ‘John 3:16 – God’s Love for all Mankind in the Sincere Free Offer of the Gospel’  (2014)  16 paragraphs

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Books 

1800’s

Dabney, Robert –  The Five Points of Calvinism, HTML, indexed by each point,  Buy

A defense of Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints

Girardeau, John – Calvinism & Evangelical Arminianism  (1890)  584 pp.

Evangelical Arminianism is the popular teaching of the church at large today.  It is often hard to pin down in order to analyze carefully.  Here Girardeau carefully articulates it and contrasts it to the Biblical truths of Election, Reprobation and Justification, which fully exposes the inadequacies of Evangelical Arminianism.  An easy to read book, but in-depth with much meat.

Kennedy, John – Man’s Relations to God  (1869)  175 pp.  ToC

Our relation to God is of the utmost consequence.  What are all the relations that God bears to man?  Kennedy takes up controversial subjects that were prominent in his day (and will always be of perennial interest to God’s people), of whether God is the father of all mankind, the sincere offer of the gospel, the warrant of faith, the extent of the atonement (and the error of the double-reference theory), the covenants of scripture, the doctrine of adoption, and others.

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Quotes

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan

Just a Talker, pp. 20-21

“Calvinism, as I have heard Lutherans define it…  is so horrible a thing that I shrink aghast at the thought of it!”

“Every unrenewed Arminian is a Pelagian, and every unrenewed Calvinist is a fatalist.”

“Calvinism and Pelagianism are the only consistent systems.  Arminianism is utterly inconsistent and irrational.”

“I think I’m a high Calvinist.  I have no objection to the height of the Calvinists, but I have objections to the miserable narrowness of some, the miserable narrowness.”

“As Calvinism rises to the infinite, it can’t be too high.”

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Historical Theology

On the Early Church

‘Sola Gratia’  in ‘Patristic Passages of Interest for Lutherans’  (2014)

The section gives excerpts from Chrysostom, John of Damascus & Augustine.

Cunningham, William – ch. 7, ‘The Church of the First Two Centuries: the Doctrines of Grace’  in Historical Theology  6 paragraphs

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On the Post-Reformation

Cunningham, William – Reformers & the Theology of the Reformation  (1862)

‘Calvinism & Arminianism’, p. 418 ff.  52 pp.

‘Calvinism & its Practical Application’, p. 525 ff.  74 pp.

‘Calvinism & the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity’, p. 471 ff.,  53 pp.

Philosophical necessity is not to be equated with Calvinism, nor is it a consequence from it, but Cunningham discusses the relation between the two.

Johnson, Charles – ‘Thomas & TULIP’  (2020)  20 paragraphs  at Reformed Theology Delatinized

“This article will address the claim that Thomas Aquinas held to an Augustinian doctrine of predestination essentially compatible with that of the Reformed Churches, showing in what ways Thomas’s doctrine is compatible with the doctrine of the Reformed Churches and important ways in which it differs.”

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Related Pages

Arminianism

Hyper-Calvinism