I'm sorry if I am being confusing. I shall try to communicate more clearly in response to your most recent reply here.
“You say that semi-Pelagians claims that God can and DOES save people who do not have faith. Thus, you deny that Arminians not only believe that God does save people without faith, but that Arminianism holds that God CANNOT (does not even have the option or power to) save people without faith.”
Sorry, I'm a little confused about what you are trying to point out.
What I am trying to point out is this:
Semi-Pelegianism: God does not AND cannot (is not able to) save people without faith
Arminianism: God does not BUT can (is able to) save people without faith
God, in the Arminian system speaks in language which could be misconstrued as consistent with the biblical doctrines of God's Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence. But digging below the surface one comes to realize that they in fact deny all three of these doctrines due to their insistence that God cannot and will not violate man's free-will.
I cannot say that I agree with your last statement for, for in fact this is the Arminian insistence:
God CAN and will not (according to His sovereign will and good pleasure) “violate” man's “free” will.
I put violate and free in quotation marks there because not all Arminians agree about the practical meaning of these terms, and also Calvinists usually do not know what Arminians mean when they use these terms.
But the main point is this: You keep stating that Arminians believe that God cannot do this or that. You seem to think that the system teaches that God lacks the power to do this or to do that. But you are mistaken since, in anything that Arminians teach that God does not do, they teach that this is a result of His intentional choice, His sovereignty, not a lack of power.
Can you see how your interpretation of their beliefs, then, differs from their actual beliefs in the case of the extension of God's power?
As I said previously, and I believe this to be true: Arminians hold strongly to the notion that God is all-powerful and His choices in salvation are never due to weakness, inability, or a lack of power, but rather that every point of salvation and the way that God chooses to do things and to deal with people stems from His sovereignty, intentionality, and volition: His pleasure and will.
In the Arminian schema, God's "foreknowledge" determines His decree, determinate council, predestination, etc... they posited that God "knows" who would believe because He "foresaw" those who would cooperate with the aforementioned prevenient grace.
I agree with the latter part of this: that Arminians posit that God knows who would believe before time (though “cease resisting” is a better word than “cooperate” to describe the response of believers toward grace in their view).
But the former part is a far cry from their doctrine. Arminius himself, and classical Arminians, maintain that God's "foreknowledge" absolutely and positively does not determines His decree: That God's sovereign will determines His decree.
He does not elect because He foresees.
He elects, with foreknowledge, because He wants to save those stop resisting His grace.
I know that the distinction between those two may seem unclear, and so I will give an analogy to try to make their view clear:
Suppose that I plan to go to school the next day and kill all the red-heads.
Furthermore, suppose that I specifically hate red-heads, and I want to kill those red-heads because I hate red-heads.
Since it is my school, I know who the attending red-heads are, and I make a list of them.
I plan to kill everyone on this list.
Which of the following statements would be true, in this hypothetical, about my motivation:
A – I plan ahead to kill specific people because I know which are red-heads (knowledge causes behavior)
B – I plan to kill all red-heads at my school, with the knowledge of their names, because I hate red-heads and want to see them die. (Motive causes behavior)
Arminians believe that “B” would be the correct answer. That motive, not knowledge, causes behavior. Given motive, knowledge may be used in executing the desired plan – but that knowledge is NOT the cause nor the determinant of the behavior.
Bringing this back to the Arminian view of God,
Calvinists say: God plans ahead to save specific people because He knows which will believe (Knowledge causes/determines behavior)
Arminians say: God's chooses to save those who will believe, with the eternal knowledge of their identities, because it is His good pleasure and Sovereign will to do so. (Motive causes/determines behavior).
This is presented in the same format as the “A” and “B” options of the Red-head hypothetical. Hopefully the distinction is clear, so that when I say: “In the Arminian schema, God's 'foreknowledge' absolutely does not determines His decree,” you will understand why I say that.
For, the Arminian and semi-Pelagian concept of grace accomplishes NOTHING in and of itself, i.e., "grace" in those systems does not save, but rather it simply provides a means, a way in which a willing sinner can be saved.
I think that you equivocating salvation with everything. Your reasoning seems to follow this line of thought:
1 – Arminians say that one type of grace does not accomplish salvation
2 – Salvation is everything
3 – Therefore, Arminians say that one type of grace accomplishes nothing
4 – One type is an entire “concept of grace” in general. No other types exist.
5 – Therefore, Arminians entire concept of grace is that accomplishes nothing.
But given that arguments 2 and 4 are untrue, the final claim (5) about the belief of Arminians does not follow. All you can rightfully say is they believe that one type of grace (previnient grace) accomplishes something other than salvation.
The difference between Calvinism and Arminianism here is that Calvinism holds that there are degrees of "reward" for faithfulness in sanctification and that only, which as you rightly wrote, are non-meritorious. Arminians/semi-Pelagians, however, hold that salvation (justification) is dependent upon the sinner's cooperation with grace. Again, my article which I gave a link to will open this up in detail.
Which of the articles are you referring to? But I do not understand your distinction here between Calvinism's teaching that grace(help) is a reward for faithfulness in sanctification, but that it's not “dependent upon” cooperation like the Arminian view is.
That is, if the Arminian view is summarized as grace being “dependent upon” cooperation, is not the Calvinist view of grace in the lives of believes “dependent upon” cooperation?
